Matches played by Birth Quarter

Much research has been conducted on the Relative Age Effect over many decades. Virtually all of it (perhaps all?) collects data based on the Birth Quarter percentages of players who have played a particular sport over a period of time. This perhaps doesn’t paint the whole picture and can hide some interesting results. 

It can be argued that in order for a player to have a long career they will have performed to a higher level than a player with a shorter career. This perhaps is a better benchmark for gauging levels of RAE than simply if a player was ever picked or not. Each team selection is a ‘vote’ for that player over a period of time. These votes add up.

Danni Wyatt (Q3) has currently played 116 times for England Women in T20 internationals. She has the most number of caps and has been a consistent performer. This should have a greater ‘value’ than that of 3 or 4 players from Q1, for example, who only play 10 matches between them.

When aggregated with other Q3 or Q4 players it can tell a different story to the small amount of RAE shown by traditional representations.

Perhaps ‘Matches played by Birth Quarter’ is a better metric than Players by Birth Quarter.