Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/The Nets/Using statistics

Cricket is by its very nature a highly statistical sport, perhaps the most statistical sport in the world. Player's careers are ultimately remembered to some degree on their individual statistics. Most runs, most centuries, most wickets, most five wicket hauls ect. All are ultimately the making of a player's career. But when should we use statistics? It's important to bear in mind WP:NOTSTATS and not flood an article with statistics, that to casual readers overwhelm the article and mean very little.

Statistics should be sourced from authoritative sources. The Cricket Project suggests two authoritative websites to primarily source statistics from: ESPNcricinfo and Cricket Archive. The latter of the two is a subscription only website, but has links to the Association of Cricket Statisticians. Every effort should be made to transfer statistics from pure numbers into the prose of the article. From a biographical standpoint, the player should have an infobox where their entire (or most recent) career statistics are displayed.

Every instance of a landmark, such as centuries or five wicket hauls, does not need to be mentioned in the article. They should be weighed up to consider their importance in a match, series, or at a particular stage in a player's career (i.e. did a particular performance lead to national selection). If considered important, then they should be mentioned in the prose with reliable sources establishing their importance. If a player has made a considerable number of centuries or five wicket hauls in international cricket, these should ideally be turned into a list (e.g. List of international cricket centuries by Kumar Sangakkara, or List of international cricket five-wicket hauls by Chaminda Vaas).

For international teams, their overall statistics for all three formats of the game should be recorded on separate articles from the team parent article (e.g. List of Australia Test cricket records, or List of Ireland One Day International cricket records). For domestic teams, all-time leading run scorers and wicket takers should be recorded on a domestics teams article, with a further breakdown of team statistics created on a separate article, typically a player's list is suffice for this (e.g. List of Hampshire County Cricket Club first-class players). For the three formats of the game and their international equivalents, overall statistics articles exist (e.g. List of Test cricket records, or List of first-class cricket records).

In summary, as a sport cricket is highly statistical. It would not do justice to the statistical nature of the sport to not incorporate statistics into our aticles. We must consider WP:NOTSTATS when doing this and ensure that statistics enhance the prose and overall flow of the article.