After a disastrous Cricket World Cup campaign, then England coach Peter Moores reportedly said he would ‘look at the data’ to explain what had happened. He was lampooned by fans who felt there was no need to defer to ‘performance indicators’ to understand his team’s shortcomings.

Nonetheless, many in sport see data as the Next Big Thing. In 2003, Michael Lewis’s book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, became a bestseller by describing the statistical methods used by the cash-strapped Oakland Athletics baseball team to fashion a group of relatively low-cost players into a hugely successful team. An emphasis on data has also been central to the success of both the Great Britain cycling team and Team Sky, both led by Sir Dave Brailsford, while crunching enormous quantities of data is standard practice for every team in Formula 1. Controversy remains, however. Matthew Benham, owner of Brentford FC in the English Championship, attracted considerable criticism for applying Moneyball-style methods, even sacking his highly-rated manager Mark Warburton for refusing to play along. So is the use of data any more than an excuse for deskilling sport, employing compliant coaches as mere implementers of statistical models?

Sporting coaches have always used numbers to try to measure how well players and teams are doing, but the ability to capture and analyse the minutiae of a game has certainly improved. Cameras, sensors and wearables record every aspect of player performance. Managers, coaches and athletes are using data to dictate calorie intake and training levels in the chase for better performance on the field. Even if the effect of data on sport itself doesn’t live up to the hype, perhaps it can enhance the experience for fans. Giving fans more information in real time in fast-moving sports could add to the excitement and depth of understanding about what is happening – for example, by providing information on events ‘off the ball’ that are hard for a TV viewer to get a sense of. On the other hand, even this effect must be limited. A poor match is still a poor match, no matter how much number-crunching accompanies it.

Does an obsession with data come at the expense of understanding much more basic issues, like player motivation and confidence or tactics? The rise of Big Data in sport seems to replace the experience and personality of successful coaches, like Jose Mourinho, with the judgement of the data analyst. Does such an approach deprive sport of spontaneity and creativity, replacing flair players with obedient and functional performers who ‘do a job for the team’?