Operational Research Applied to Sports

Through key research papers from Palgrave's Journal of Operational Research, this book showcases how Operational Research can be applied to sports in a variety of ways, including: timetabling fixtures; scheduling officials; forecasting outcomes; optimizing tactics and strategy; analyzing the effects of rules and laws; planning issues, and performance measurement. The introductory chapter provides a broad overview with an examination of how this area has developed over time, and a look at its wide ranging applications to sports including football, tennis and cricket etc.

Mike Wright is Professor of Operational Research at Lancaster University and has researched extensively in the area of OR in Sports since 1989. His main interests are: the practical implementations of sports timetabling and scheduling using complex metaheuristic methods; the analysis of tactics and strategy in sport; and the analysis of the potential and actual effects of changes in sporting rules and laws. He has published numerous papers in the area in a variety of top international academic journals, and presented papers at many international conferences. Mike has worked with the England and Wales Cricket Board since 1990, timetabling cricket fixtures and allocating umpires, and has done similar work for New Zealand Cricket, Basketball New Zealand, New Zealand Rugby Union, the Minor Counties Cricket Association, the Devon Cricket League, the Home Counties Cricket League and the ICC Cricket World Cups in 1999 and 2007.