Explained: Why South Asians play better cricket

Success in cricket can be attributed to ethnic differences with some groups doing well while others lagging. That's why Europeans, South Asians and coloured people are over-represented in cricket while Northeast Asians, East and West Africans and Pacific Islanders are far and few. West Africans, with European admixture, in the West Indies and England are moderately represented in cricket. And among racial groups that do well in cricket, South Asians posses an ideal body type for this game.

This has been revealed in a new study by researchers from Britain and Finland. The evidence about racial differences in success in sports such as short and long-distance running, football, baseball and swimming is well recorded but this is the first time these differences have been studied for cricket. Racial differences are partly genetic because different races tend to succeed in sports which require certain physical characteristics which they possess, researchers have explained.

The racial differences are evident from rankings given for Test cricket, which is the highest level of cricket under the International Cricket Council. The ICC player rankings for 2013 shows that a majority of best Test players are either European or South Asian. Similarly, none of the best Test or ODI (One Day International) batsmen were black, Northeast Asian or Pacific Islander. Another indicator - ESPN data on world records - shows that Europeans or South Asians hold all records in bowling and fielding. The only exception is for batting where four out of ten records are held by South Asians, two by Europeans and four by West Indian Blacks Brian Lara and Sir Vivian Richards, who may have some European or South Asian admixture.

While all the South Asian Commonwealth countries are represented at the highest level of cricket, there are many former British empire countries in Africa where cricket was and is played but which do not have Test match status. Researchers cite this data in support of their argument about ethnic differences - and not connection with former British empire - dictating success in cricket. This explains the success of Bangladesh and failure of Nepal which is geographically in South Asia but racially close to North East Asians.

"These differences are partly genetic because the body types of races are over-represented among good cricketers are closer to the modal cricketing body type than are those races that are under-represented. Northeast Asians, West Africans and Pacific Islanders are under-represented because of their less suitable body types. North East Asians and Pacific Islanders are too endomorphic (fat, squat) and West Africans are too mesomorphic (muscular) to be good at cricket. The European body type is moderately endomorphic making them good at cricket, while South Asian body type endo-mesomorphic, which is the optimum for cricket and explains why they are the most over-represented in good cricket," explained Edward Dutton, a cultural anthropologist at University of Oulu, Finland, who led the research, along with Richard Lynn of University of Ulster, UK.

In addition, racial differences in muscle fibre distribution helps to explain why the success of the West Indies in cricketing records has tended to be in batting but not bowling or fielding, which require higher levels of endurance, Dutton said in an interview with me.

"There is clear evidence that a specific kind of body type makes you good at cricket. This being the case, countries or races with a large percentage of whose members have that body type will be better at cricket than groups where only a small percentage have that body type. If we assume that all races should be equally good at cricket, then in multicultural societies South Asians should be represented on the national cricket team in line with their population percentage. But they are almost always over-represented and this is because they have the ideal body type to be good at cricket," elaborated Dutton.

However, there are slight differences between the body types of different cricketing positions. "Batsmen are more mesomorphic or muscular than bowlers or fielders. So, you would expect West Africans to be better at batting than bowling and this is what we find. Europeans and South Asians would be better at bowling for the same reason. In addition, batsmen benefit from being able to run very fast and West Africans have about 75 per cent fast twitch muscle fibres, so they are excellent at running fast for short periods of time, which is what you need in cricket," according to Dutton. The study result would be published in journal Mankind Quarterly on April.

Top ten cricketers in 2013 by race

AUS - Australia, BA - Bangladesh, ENG - England, IND - India, IR - Ireland, NZ - New Zealand, PAK - Pakistan, SA - South Africa, SL - Sri Lanka, WI - West Indies.

Test Matches record by race (ESPN, 2013)

Euro - European, S As - South Asian, W Af - West African.