Does the winning streak have a role to play in a cricket match outcome? Is “momentum” relevant in predicting who’s gonna win?
In cricket everything seems to have a role to play at the end of the day. From the weather conditions, to the type of the field and from the degree of humidity to the format of the match, these are all factors that appear to be very important in determining -at least to some extent – who’s gonna win and who’s gonna lose. For bettors who love to wager on cricket matches, such factors are quite common to consider and they always incorporate them into their picks and choices when they decide to experiment in one of the best cricket betting sites.
What about momentum?
But besides the apparent and more substantive factors taken into consideration when bettors want to predict the outcome of a cricket match, there is one more issue that many pro punters pay attention to and this is none other than the so called “momentum”! And when we talk about momentum we mean the winning streak that a team has over its course of performance in a given single or multiple tournaments.
Despite the fact that social scientists and psychologists do not recognize the value of ‘momentum’ in sports as critical in its own manner to change or affect the outcome of a game, we get to hear athletes more and more often make reference to that ‘momentum’ when they are talking about losing or winning streaks of their teams
If you are a fan of sports, it’s almost certain that you have come across the word “momentum” in some post-game interview of athletes and teams, in pre-game sports analysts’ reviews or even in sports news talking about how good a team or a player have been in a series of games.
“They are on a winning streak”, “they have an apparent momentum” are only some of the phrases used by the sports people themselves to demonstrate that they are going through a period of positive outcomes and exceptional performance.
Does the winning streak have any predictive validity?
The question that remains is whether you can treat a team’s winning streak as something that can influence how a team is going to play and if in the end it will get them to victory.
Well, while there is no proven cause-and-effect relationship, sports analysts insist that momentum is deemed to positively affect the psychology of players, boost their confidence and make them more accountable for achieving one more victory in their winning streak.
This alone does have a good predictive validity, especially if we think that athletes’ motivation and psychology are extremely relevant to how they play and how they perform. All the best betting sites for cricket are very well aware of that, and this can be seen in the offered odds.
If momentum is to give the players the boost, the hype and the energy that is required to win a game, then of course we are talking about a factor that has a strong impact on the final outcome.
The role of momentum in a team experiencing a streak of victories becomes progressively more important when the players and the entire team, in fact, believe that they have momentum!
If you are confused, just think that the more the players believe that they have that good fortune or that there is a force bringing success, the more they feel confident that this will continue to happen and the more they feel confident about their ability to sustain this force.
Does momentum come to an end?
Of course someone would wonder -for all the good reasons – how is any momentum coming to an end, since success generates success and wins bring in more wins.
Well, this is the difficult part of the whole thing. You can never say for sure when the winning streak is ending or why it is ending. Maybe it’s because it is the others’ turn to have that momentum! But for as long as momentum lasts, it is surely one very critical factor determining cricket match outcomes.
Moonda Ale
Cricket Content Writer at Cricfacts.com. A seasoned sports journalist who is working in the industry for more than two decades. He is now on facebook also.