A probability analysis of India’s men’s cricket coin toss losses – II UPDATED 25/10/2025

NB: This post is now updated to include the 18th consecutive toss loss.

It’s come to my attention that we have lost the last 17 18 coin tosses in One Day International matches for men’s cricket,¹ so here’s a continuation of our unfortunate probabilities.

Here’s a more detailed explanation of probability and our toss-losing powers. This post is a continuation of the linked post, so please read that first. However for the lazy buggers who won’t:

1. Every coin toss is considered an independent event- the outcome of one fair coin toss will not have any impact on the outcomes of any other fair coin tosses.
2. The probability of two independent events happening at the same time is the product or multiplication of the probabilities of the two events in question. This is called “joint probability”, so If event A has probability P(A) and event B has probability P(B), and their outcomes do not affect each other, the probability that both occur is P(A) × P(B).

#	Date	Opponent	Venue	Captain	Toss Result
1	Nov 19, 2023	Australia	Ahmedabad	Rohit Sharma	Lost
2	Dec 17, 2023	South Africa	Centurion	KL Rahul	Lost
3	Dec 19, 2023	South Africa	Gqeberha	KL Rahul	Lost
4	Dec 21, 2023	South Africa	Paarl	KL Rahul	Lost
5	Feb 6, 2024	England	Hyderabad	Rohit Sharma	Lost
6	Feb 9, 2024	England	Visakhapatnam	Rohit Sharma	Lost
7	Feb 12, 2024	England	Rajkot	Rohit Sharma	Lost
8	Aug 10, 2024	Sri Lanka	Colombo	Rohit Sharma	Lost
9	Aug 12, 2024	Sri Lanka	Pallekele	Rohit Sharma	Lost
10	Aug 15, 2024	Sri Lanka	Dambulla	Rohit Sharma	Lost
11	Feb 20, 2025	Bangladesh	Dubai	Rohit Sharma	Lost
12	Feb 23, 2025	Pakistan	Dubai	Rohit Sharma	Lost
13	Mar 2, 2025	New Zealand	Dubai	Rohit Sharma	Lost
14	Mar 4, 2025	Australia	Dubai	Rohit Sharma	Lost
15	Mar 9, 2025	New Zealand	Dubai	Rohit Sharma	Lost
16	Oct 19, 2025	Australia	Perth	Shubman Gill	Lost
17	Oct 23, 2025	Australia	Adelaide	Shubman Gill	Lost
18	Oct 25, 2025	Australia	Sidney	Shubman Gill	Lost

You’ll notice that once again the tosses have been lost across tournaments, three different captains, and multiple venues (home and away), and the calling captains choosing heads or tails at random and India still losing every time.

Now, at first I thought that the all format streak of losing 16 consecutive tosses and this ODI streak of losing 17 consecutive tosses were just one series of unfortunate events, but now I want to understand what the probability is of these being considered separate streaks and both “events” still occurring.

So here are the two overlapping streaks:

1. The ODI-specific streak (Nov 2023–Oct 2025): 17 18 consecutive ODI toss losses.
   Probability = ^{(1/2)^17 = 1/131,072 ≈ 0.00076%} (1/2)¹⁸ = 1/262,144 ≈ 0.000381%; and​
2. The all-format streak (Jan–Oct 2025): 16 consecutive toss losses across formats. Probability = (1/2)¹⁶ = 1/65,536 ≈ 0.0015%.​

And the probability that these two have coexisted is just the multiplication of the two independent streaks, which is P = (1/131072) × (1/262,144) = 1/8589934592, or about 1/8,600,000,000, which is one in 8.6 billion 1/17179869184, or about 1/17,000,000,000, which is one in 17 billion.

As of mid-2025, the world population was estimated to be around 8.2 billion.² So if in the middle of this year, if every single person had tossed a fair coin TWICE, there is a possibility that these two streaks would still not have overlapped. It’s an astronomical rarity, so of course we’re on the wrong side of it, *depressed emoji*.

In probability theory, there is a concept of waiting time. Waiting time in streak probability asks how long before you see the streak in question happen? So here it will ask, “How many tosses, on average, until you first see a streak of n consecutive heads (or losses, or wins)?” For a fair coin, the expected number of tosses (waiting time) to see an uninterrupted streak of length n is approximately: E_n = 2⁽ⁿ⁺¹⁾ – 2.³

In the formula, “n” is the length of the streak.

For a streak of 6 coin toss losses, we will have to wait for

E₆ = 2⁽⁶⁺¹⁾ – 2

E₆ = 2⁷ – 2

E₆ = 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 – 2

E₆ = 128 – 2 = 126 coin tosses.

• So, for our first streak of 16 consecutive coin toss losses, the world waited with bated breath for 2¹⁷ – 2 = 131,070 fair tosses;
• For the ODI 17 18 coin toss loss streak, we waited for 2¹⁸ − 2 = 262,142 2¹⁹ -2 = 524,286 fair tosses; and
• For both to happen together, we waited 131,070 × 262,142 524,286 fair tosses, or 68,718,166,020, or more than 34 68.7 billion fair coin tosses- A NUMBER SO WILD (okay, calm down, calm down) even cricket fans don’t expect it.

What the hell, my guys?

NB: I just realised that the most widely accepted scientific estimate for the age of the known universe is about 13.8 billion years,⁴ so the chances of these two streaks happening at all, let alone together, actually involves numbers several times greater than the entire age of the universe in years. Personal suggestion to Shubman Gill- havan karwale bhai.

Sources

1. A 1 in 130,000 chance: India extend world record ODI toss losing streak to 17 matches
2. World Population Day: trends and demographic changes
3. How many coin flips on average does it take to get n consecutive heads?
4. How old is the universe?