The number of wickets taken is a stat. The raw data that informs it is the collective set of all balls bowled by a bowler. I'm not being needlessly pedantic,

The number of wickets taken is a stat. The raw data that informs it is the collective set of all balls bowled by a bowler. I'm not being needlessly pedantic, it's an important distinction when considering the level of analysis that one is able to perform. If you are doing major cricket analytics, you need ball-by-ball information, including as much information about the bowler's position, movement and arm motion, batter's position, movement and stroke information, how the field is set up, conditions of the pitch, situation in the match, etc. For example, consider a situation where we're attempting to compare two bowlers. Bowler A may have got a wicket off a shot that 95% of batters would not play, whereas Bowler B did not get a wicket despite bowling a ball that achieves a wicket 10% of the time. The stats suggest that bowler A is in better form, but a data-driven view of the game suggests that bowler B is actually in better form. As it stands, stats are available in abundance for every major sport, but detailed data is not. If a better had access to the latter, and they were were able to parse it with an in-depth understanding of the sport, they'd be at a huge advantage versus betters that did not, and they would reap the benefits.