Individual Performance and Leader's Laterality in Interactive Contests

TL;DR

This study finds that cricket captains who bat left-handed have a strategic advantage, leading to better team performance and higher odds of success in ODIs and Tests, highlighting the importance of laterality in leadership.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that left-handed cricket captains are more effective leaders, demonstrating a significant link between laterality and team performance in professional sports.

Findings

Left-handed captains have 89% higher odds of superior batting performance.

Left-handed captains are more successful in motivating team members.

Left-handed leadership correlates with better team outcomes in cricket.

Abstract

Left-handedness is known to provide an intrinsic and tactical advantage at top level in many sports involving interactive contests. Again, most of the renowned leaders of the world are known to have been left-handed. Leadership plays an important role in politics, sports and mentorship. In this paper we show that Cricket captains who bat left-handed have a strategic advantage over the right-handed captains in One Day International (ODI) and Test matches. The present study involving 46 left-handed captains and 148 right-handed captains in ODI matches, reveal a strong relation between leader's laterality and team-member performance, demonstrating the critical importance of left-handedness and successful leadership. The odds for superior batting performance in an ODI match under left-handed captains are 89% higher than the odds under right-handed captains. Our study shows that left-handed captains are more successful in extracting superior performance from the batsmen and bowlers in ODI and Test matches; perhaps indicating left-handed leaders are better motivators as leaders when compared to right-handed captains.