CLT20 second week round-up

Contributed by Subash Jayaraman

(An updated version of this article featuring a review of the entire CLT20 using COW-based insights is available here)

Here are a few more observations on teams and trends in the second week (13th - 19th Oct) of 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. It records each team's chance of winning at the end of each over throughout the match.

•    Kieron Pollard has authored the most impactful over of the tournament so far. The only thing that swung higher and faster than the arc of his bat was his team's chances of winning in that one mad over off Henriques. It was perhaps the only time of the year where Henriques regretted NOT being a part of the Kolkata KnightRiders where he would have had many other players to share the blame and embarassment.

With T&T needing 51 off 4 overs, Pollard scored 27 runs in one over, swinging his team’s COW from 33% to 52%. This makes him the creator of the most impactful burst of performance in the tournament so far.

•    T&T have also emerged as the most resilient team of the tournament so far. They are the only team to have fought back despite being in situations where they have had a less than 30% chance of winning the match with under 10 overs to go. This has happened not once but twice - once against NSW thanks to the Pollard burst, and earlier against the Deccan Chargers where some tight bowling kept the Hyderbadi side down to 23 runs in the last five overs for the loss of 4 wickets, after they had scored 41 in the previous five for 2 wickets.

•    Another interesting T&T snippet. T&T got 64 runs off their first 6 overs against the Eagles. Conventional wisdom suggests that they should look to consolidate now, and then have another burst at the end. This, however, may have reduced their chances of winning the game. COW suggests that had T&T carried on in that fashion - scoring 10 an over – till the 10th over, they would have had a 66% chance of winning the match from thereon. This, even if they lost 2 wickets in the process. They duly did that, and went on to end the innings with a record COW of 70%.

•    To break the T&T monopoly/monotony, we'll spend a few lines talking about Somerset, although they'll definitely not want us to. Somerset were at the wrong end of the most comprehensive walloping meted out in the tournament so far. NSW reduced Somerset's COW to 0% in the 8th over of their chase (set 112 to win) with a whopping 12 overs to go, thus breaking a record set by Delhi Daredevils, who reduced Wayamba to 0% in the 13th over in their first round encounter.

•    The 'comfort zone' for the teams playing continues to be around the 65% mark going into the last 7 or 8 overs. Most teams have gone on to win once they have had more than 65% chance of winning going into the final lap of the match.

More such round-ups to follow with the last three matches of the tournament.

(Click here for the first week's COW stories)
(Click here to know more about COW)

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CLT20 second week round-up

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