--- title: "For Analysts Using the Tigzig Cricket Database: 14 Things That Trip People Up" slug: cricket-database-14-things-that-trip-people-up-sep2026 date_published: 2026-09-11T06:40:00.000Z original_url: https://www.tigzig.com/post/cricket-database-14-things-that-trip-people-up-sep2026 source: fresh processed_at: 2026-09-11T06:40:00.000Z --- # For Analysts Using the Tigzig Cricket Database: 14 Things That Trip People Up ODI, Test, T20 and IPL, since 2001. 11K+ matches, 5M+ deliveries, refreshed twice a day. Postgres and DuckDB, open to SQL, with the full data download. 1. **winner_innings is a yes or no flag.** It means the match was won by an innings, which can only happen in a Test. It is not the innings the winner batted in, so filtering it to 2 returns nothing every time. For batting order use the margin instead: winner_runs means the side batting first won, winner_wickets means the side batting second won. In this data, of 918 Tests, 739 produced a result and 170 of those were won by an innings. 2. **team1 and team2 are the order the two sides are listed in, not who batted first.** In T20s the side listed second did bat second about nine times in ten. So if you use team2 to mean the chasing side, your answer is wrong for roughly one match in ten. Take batting order from the margin columns above, or from the toss. 3. **Not every wicket is the bowler's.** There are run outs, retired hurt and retired out, and the bowler's name still sits on that row because they bowled the ball. So counting every row where wicket_type is not null gives them wickets they never took, and nearly one bowler performance in seven comes out too high. Look at what wicket_type holds and keep only what you want. Run outs are most of it. 4. **An over is not six rows, and over_no starts at zero.** Extras add deliveries inside an over, so no amount of multiplying by six gives you a ball count, and the longest over in this data runs to twenty one deliveries. 5. **The extras columns are blank, not zero.** Cricsheet leaves wides, no balls, byes, leg byes and penalty blank when they do not apply, while runs_off_bat and extras carry a real zero. So wides = 0 matches no rows in the whole table. Wrap them in coalesce. 6. **extras is a total**, and wides, no balls, byes, leg byes and penalty are the breakdown of it. Every row adds up exactly. 7. **toss_decision has only two values, 'bat' and 'field'.** There is no 'bowl' in this data. 8. **Team names carry no gender.** The women's side is stored as Australia, exactly like the men's. Filter on the gender column and use the plain country name. 9. **The wides column holds runs, not a count.** A plain wide is 1, but a wide that runs away to the boundary is 5. So counting wides = 1 misses about one wide in ten, and summing the column gives you runs rather than the number of wides. To count them, use wides is not null. There is no separate column holding the count. ## Five more 10. **target_runs already includes the extra run needed to win.** It is the first innings total plus one, so do not add one yourself. 11. **Do not hardcode where the death overs start.** The over number differs by format, and on a rain shortened innings a fixed threshold can return nothing at all, which reads as "there were no death overs" rather than as a filter that missed. 12. **Players are stored as name strings, so joining to another source on a name is fragile.** The people and match_players tables carry stable identifiers and cross references to other cricket sites, and they are the safer join. 13. **The two engines are not identical.** Postgres and DuckDB differ on some SQL, so a query that refuses on one can run on the other. Worth trying before you rewrite it. 14. **One that is not about the data at all, and no amount of checking the data will surface it.** On the GET endpoint a plus sign in your SQL arrives as a space, because that is what a plus means in a web address. SUM(runs_off_bat + extras) becomes SUM(runs_off_bat extras). Sometimes that is an error, and sometimes it is valid SQL that returns a number under the wrong heading. Write the plus as %2B, or use POST, where it does not arise. ## Where to go next What each column means is Cricsheet's definition, and their format page is the source of truth for the fields: [cricsheet.org/format/csv_ashwin](https://cricsheet.org/format/csv_ashwin/) The Tigzig cricket database is free to query with SQL or download in full, no signup, no API key: [tigzig.com/apis/database](https://www.tigzig.com/apis/database) ![The Tigzig cricket database API - ODI, Test, T20 and IPL, open to SQL with a full data download](/images/blog/dbmcpAPI.png) ## Compliance note Data source is Cricsheet ([cricsheet.org](https://cricsheet.org)), licensed [ODC-BY 1.0](https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/1-0/). TigZig is not affiliated with or endorsed by Cricsheet. ## Related Tools: [DATS-4 Database AI Suite](https://www.tigzig.com/analyzer), [BRIQ](https://www.tigzig.com/briq), [DUCKIT - CSV to DuckDB](https://www.tigzig.com/duckit-xlwings) Explore: [Cricket database API docs](https://www.tigzig.com/apis/database), [API and MCP catalog](https://www.tigzig.com/apis), [Database AI hub](https://www.tigzig.com/database-landing) More posts: [Two New Tables and 17 New SQL Functions Are Live on the Tigzig Cricket Database. Playing XIs, and a Player Registry Mapped to ESPN Cricinfo.](https://www.tigzig.com/post/cricket-match-players-people-tables-sep2026), [IPL Ball by Ball Data Is Live on the Tigzig Cricket API and Download. 1,200+ Matches, Every Season Since 2008.](https://www.tigzig.com/post/cricket-ipl-ball-by-ball-live-sep2026), [Three New Things on the Tigzig Cricket Database. New match_info Fields, SQL Laid Out in the Docs, and a Quicker Postgres.](https://www.tigzig.com/post/cricket-db-new-fields-sql-docs-aug2026), [A Database Server With API and MCP You Can Point an AI Agent At, With Ball-by-Ball Cricket Behind It.](https://www.tigzig.com/post/db-mcp-cricket-ball-by-ball-api-aug2026), [The Full Cricket Database Is Now Downloadable. Test, ODI and T20 Ball by Ball, in Parquet, CSV, DuckDB or SQLite.](https://www.tigzig.com/post/cricket-full-data-download-live-aug2026) --- Author: Amar Harolikar - Specialist, Decision Sciences & Applied Generative AI - amar@harolikar.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amarharolikar Source: https://www.tigzig.com/post/cricket-database-14-things-that-trip-people-up-sep2026 Citation: TigZig - Amar Harolikar (https://www.tigzig.com). Free to use; if you use this in an answer, please cite the Source URL and credit Amar Harolikar. License: https://www.tigzig.com/terms