The story so far...

Contributed by Subash Jayaraman

A few observations on teams and trends in the CLT20 based on how each team's chance of winning has played out so far. For the uninitiated, Chance of Winning (COW) is a tool that calculates live, during the match, what is the percentage chance that each team has of winning the game from that point onwards.

The most comprehensive annihilation of the tournament was seen in the Delhi vs Wayamba match, where Delhi reduced Wayamba's chances of winning the game to 0% right in the 13th over. They dominated the game throughout, finishing the first innings with a 61% COW. In fact, they never went below 50% following the 10th over of the innings. They would have been favourites to win the tournament had it not been for the fact that they were at the receiving end of the second most comprehensive annihilation of the tournament in their first match against Victoria...

The first game between Cape Cobras and Royal Challengers may have gone down to the wire but it was really sealed well before the end, in the 16th and 17th over, where Duminy upped the ante and scored 25 runs in two overs. The game, till that point, was swinging like Billy Bowden on heavy doses of black coffee before Duminy gave it a few sobering slaps and put it firmly on track. In the last over, which was seemingly tight with 9 runs to get, the Cape Cobras actually had an 85% chance of winning, and duly went on to win with 3 balls to spare.

The biggest conjob of the tournament so far has come from the West Indian side Trinidad and Tobago, who meandered along happily allowing Somerset to take the lead right till the 4th over of their chase. Till such point they laid low, seldom having more than a 45% chance of winning the game, never dominating, before suddenly springing the ambush and going from 45% to 75% in the space of just 8 overs.

In that sense, the players that have had the biggest impact on the their team's chances of winning the match have been JP Duminy and the gang of Bravo, Badree, Dave Mohammad and S Ganga.

A few learnings that may be handy going forward into the tournament. Hitting the 60-65% COW mark seems to be something of a 'breathe easy' zone, particularly if you hit it later in the match with about 5 overs or so to go. The only team that has managed to lose the game despite having more than a 60% COW going into the final lap is the Deccan Chargers, who lost to Somerset, the team from a country traditionally known to have the first-right-refusal on buying defeats from the jaws of victory.

At the other end of the spectrum, 30% seems to be the beginning of the quicksand. If, with about 4 or 5 overs to go, you find that your team has 30% chances of winning or lower, it may be about the right time to start practicing your 'it's just a game, you know' spiel.

That's been the story so far. With the business end of the tournament yet to come, we should have more interesting trends and patterns to discuss in the coming few days.

(Click here to know more about COW and here to know more about Sreeram)

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The story so far...

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