The white captain era of West Indian cricket

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Stefan Szymanski, University of Michigan

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
FC&Test.dta application/x-stata-dta 682.3 KB 02/06/2024 02:33:PM
Readme.docx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document 15.2 KB 02/28/2025 06:53:AM
The white captain era of West Indian cricket.docx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document 1.2 MB 02/28/2025 06:53:AM
available_players.do text/plain 3.1 KB 12/17/2023 02:51:PM
available_players.dta application/x-stata-dta 534.6 KB 02/01/2024 04:30:AM
combined_games.csv text/csv 2.8 MB 02/28/2025 06:46:AM
selection_reg.do text/plain 12.3 KB 02/14/2024 02:10:PM

Project Citation: 

Szymanski, Stefan. The white captain era of West Indian cricket. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-08-13. https://doi.org/10.3886/E221124V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary The British Caribbean colonies competed in international cricket under the name of "West Indies" starting in 1928. Until 1960 there was an unwritten rule that the captain of the team should be white, even though most of the players were Black. For this reason some of the most talented players were denied the captaincy.

This paper estimates the cost in terms of team performance attributable to the white captain policy. It also models the team player selection process based on player records from first class matches, which were usually used as a key selection criterion.

The paper shows that not only did white players generally underperform their teammates in international matches, but that this was predictable based on first class performance.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms Cricket; sports performance; racial discrimination
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage Caribbean
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1/1/1925 – 1/1/1961
Collection Date(s):  View help for Collection Date(s) 10/1/2023 – 5/1/2024
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) event/transaction data
Collection Notes:  View help for Collection Notes The data was obtained from the website CricketArchive

Methodology

Data Source:  View help for Data Source CricketArchive
Collection Mode(s):  View help for Collection Mode(s) web scraping
Unit(s) of Observation:  View help for Unit(s) of Observation player scores

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Published Versions

V1 [2025-08-13]

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