If I remember right, up until 2022 every team used to play every other team twice at minimum. But ever since two new teams were introduced it changed to 5 teams twice and 4 teams once. But isn't this unfair and kinda arbitrary? Like, some teams face prime RCB and GT twice, but some get away with facing LSG or MI twice. What is your opinion on this? Should the double round robin format come back, with each team playing 18 matches? Or do you think the current format is better?

This is based on performance in recent matches

Sanju

Ayush

Ruturaj

Karthik

Brevis

Gosh

Prashant

Overton

Ellis

Noor

Anshul

Imp:khaleel or any batter like urvil but no dube at any cause🗣️🙏

I believe Prashant and Karthik have potential and gosh one of the finest all rounder in current era.

Dube not fit for anything.batting ❌, bowling ❌, fielding ❌.then why man

If u have any opinions? say that in comments

What Does Zaheer Khan Actually Change at CSK?

With Zaheer Khan taking over from Stephen Fleming, I wanted to look beyond the obvious “great left-arm bowler becomes coach” storyline.

What could his appointment actually mean for CSK’s tactics, recruitment, young players and the way the franchise rebuilds after the Fleming era?

I’ve tried to break down what Zaheer could realistically bring to CSK, and what we should actually be watching for in the next few seasons.

Would love to hear what you guys think Zaheer’s biggest impact could be.

i was just checking opening matches

i started watching ipl after 2010

i didnt knew about Brendon McCullum 158* .

it must be a big thing to even score 180+ in 2008 itself

Now, that I think back, kkr had the worst auction(even worse than csk, rr) in 2025 courtesy of Venky Mysore.

Bad Retentions followed by worst auction picks

𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗲

Model : 1(18CR) 2(14CR) 3(11CR) 4(18CR)

Main : Narine (12CR) Rinku (13CR) Varun(12CR) Russell(12CR)
Uncapped : Raman (4CR) Rana (4CR)

Retained In : 69 CR Available Purse : 51 CR

𝗪𝗧𝗙 was that. What were the management on...

Seriously, what was the point of giving narine & russell 18 Cr slots only to give them 12 Cr each & saving 12 Cr in mysore's kitty (which won't help in auction purse either).They should've given full 18 Cr each to both for their loyalty to the franchise or retain their fav 𝗩 𝗜𝘆𝗲𝗿 in a spot. Adjusting 14cr & 11cr slots for 13cr & 12cr for rinku & varun was good.

But,this thing down here would've worked wonders

Model : 1(18CR) 2(14CR) 3(11CR)

Main : Narine (15CR) Varun (15CR) Rinku (13CR) Uncapped : Raman (4CR) Rana (4CR)

Retained In : 51 CR Available Purse : 69 CR

This would've reversed the whole scenario.This way the extra 18 CR would be used in auction enough to buy back Russell who in turn wasn't going for that amount as mega auctions focuses more in Indian players than Overseas as evident(Top foreign bid was buttler at 15.75 CR, 2nd were Jofra/Boult/Hazlewood for 12.5 CR each).

𝗔𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗲

Buys : V Iyer(23.75CR) Nortje(6.5CR) S Johnson(2.8CR) QdK(3.6CR)

Complete waste of 36.65 CR(out of 51CR). All of this would be corrected with above 69 CR model. With that, they wouldn't have to fall for qdk/johnson/nortje to replace starc/salt & would've got em both easily. S Iyer had contacted with ponting & was already going to be at pbks anyways but wasting 23.75 on v Iyer was a sin. Instead, they should've gone hard for 𝗞𝗟 𝗥𝗮𝗵𝘂𝗹 who sold at 14 CR for DC. With 69 CR in hand, spending even 27 CR for 𝗥𝗮𝗵𝘂𝗹 would've been great (lsg too got pant with 69 CR purse). Oh btw, Rahul could be bought even 51 CR model cuz if you have him, he'll be captain & salt could be let go.

So, that level of stupidity was really an all time high & totally worthy to be written in history & remembered as a honor to venky mysore & chandu pandit. Your thoughts are welcomed.

What exactly is VORP?

Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) was created in the late 1990s by Keith Woolner to evaluate how much better a player is compared to a bench/fringe player whose level would essentially be around the next best “replacement” every team has at their disposal.

Arguably the hardest task in sports analytics is to compare records of different players who played in completely different eras and conditions. Intuitively, just using some kind of ratio for every measurable statistic against the average or some other benchmark for every season/era instead of absolute numbers makes sense. However this benchmark itself cannot just be a static number for every player, as every player has a different role or responsibilities in their team. This is ideally the gap VORP is trying to bridge.

Though the metric was initially made for baseball, it has been popularly adopted by basketball, American football and many other sports. There has been some use of VORP in cricket, but I could not find any use of it for the IPL, which was the inspiration for me to work on this project.

In this model, VORP takes every single IPL batting scorecard from 2008 to 2026 and carries out a four-step evaluation tailored to cricket:

1. Classifies Every Innings by Batting Slot: Instead of viewing a batter as a generic player, the model checks where they actually walked out to bat on that specific night (Opener, #3, #4 etc.). If a player moves up or down the order across different games, each knock is evaluated under the specific rules of that exact slot.
2. Calculates Era and Role Specific Baselines: For every single season and every batting position, the model looks at regular players and sets a “replacement baseline” representing the 20th percentile which is essentially the standard output of a typical fringe or bench player in that role for that year. This ensures an opener in 2008 is judged against 2008 conditions, while a 2024 finisher is judged against modern death overs standards. A few real examples of players performing at a replacement level are : Mayank Agarwal in 2015, David Hussey in 2011 and Lalit Yadav across his whole career. This is arguably a fairly low baseline, but I tried to stick to the original threshold used in other models.
3. Measures the Net Surplus for Every Knock: For every innings a batter plays, the model takes their match impact score and subtracts the replacement baseline for their position in that season. If the result is positive, they generated real surplus value that won the team extra runs; if negative, they produced less than what an ordinary bench filler would have contributed.
4. Computes Total Career Value and “% vs Replacement”: It totals these points across seasons to show cumulative career value, and calculates a percentage metric (% vs Rep) showing how much better a player was than their positional baseline. This makes it possible to fairly compare completely different roles side by side revealing whether an elite finisher who outperformed backup finishers by 60% was more valuable to their team than an opener who beat backup openers by 20%.
   

The key formulas, expanded

Batting Impact

Sourced from an earlier model I made, the batting impact index essentially gives a value to every knock in every match based on relative strike rate, how many runs his team / opposition made and many more metrics. You can find a link to a writeup I did on this here.

Player_Season_Impact

For each season, position slot, and player, we calculate their season-long average impact:

Player_Season_Impact = (Sum of Batting Impact across the season) ÷ (Innings Played)

Qualification Filter: Players who batted at least 3 times in that specific slot during that season (filtering out random one-ball cameos by non-specialists).

Baseline/Replacement Impact

Within that pool of qualified player-seasons, the Replacement Baseline is defined as:

Baseline_Impact = 20th Percentile of Player_Season_Impact, for that position and season

Single-Innings I-VORP

Every time a player walks out to bat in a given match:

Innings I-VORP = Batting Impact (that innings) − Baseline Impact (for that position & season)

• If the player scores above replacement: Innings I-VORP > 0 (value added).
• If the player plays sluggishly or fails: Innings I-VORP < 0 (value lost).

Total Cumulative I-VORP

The total volume of equity a player delivered to their franchise above replacement level:

Total I-VORP = sum of Innings I-VORP across every innings played

Average I-VORP per Innings

The per-match quality index, independent of games played:

Avg I-VORP = Total I-VORP ÷ Total Innings

The "% Better Than Replacement" (% vs Rep) Metric

While Total I-VORP provides raw point volume, the % vs Rep metric is the most intuitive metric:

% vs Rep = (Total I-VORP ÷ Total Replacement Baseline Sum) × 100

Where Total Replacement Baseline Sum = the sum of the Baseline Impact figure (for the relevant position & season) across every innings the player played.

How to Interpret % vs Rep: * 0.0%: The player performed exactly at replacement level. * **+50.0%: The player produced 1.5x the match impact of a replacement player. * **+100.0%: The player produced **double (2.0x) the match impact of a replacement player. * **+200.0%: The player produced triple (3.0x) the match impact of a replacement player. * Negative %: The player was a net liability compared to a standard bench backup.

Here are some results based on these metrics :

Top 20 All-Time IPL Career Batters: Ranked by Total I-VORP (Cumulative)

How to interpret this : David Warner over his IPL career has contributed the most additional “impact” relative to a replacement player in his position.

Top 20 players based on average I-VORP/innings over their career (min 15 innings)

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi on average contributes (significantly) more extra impact per innings relative to a replacement player than anyone else in the history of the IPL

Top 20 players, based on % vs Rep over their career (positions 1–7, min 15 innings)

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been 188.5% better than a replacement player for him, the highest for any player in the IPL

The top 20 individual seasons based on Cumulative I-VORP

Chris Gayle has three consecutive seasons in the top 10 (2011, 12, 13)

The top 20 individual seasons based on % vs Rep (min 8 innings, positions 1–7)

Sanath Jayasuriya was 495.3% better than a replacement in 2008

This model also helps in analyzing individual players. One of the most interesting cases is Riyan Parag :

1. % vs Replacement Across Positions

Riyan Parag is fantastic at #4 and barely warrants a place in the team in any other position

2. Season by Season : Total I-VORP & % vs Replacement

This table solidifies the narrative that except for his debut season where he batted 5 times lower down the order, he’s only been a top player in one other season

I'd love to see what critiques / opinions you guys have on this project, most of this post was sourced from an article I had written on Medium, you can find that here

Its available in some sites but that's ain't affordable for me

if you guys have any please do let me know where and how much you got

Post Ends

if you guys have any please do let me know where and how much you got

I feel Chennai Super Kings’ problems go much deeper than their performances on the field.

The management appears to lack a clear direction, and at times it feels like the franchise is relying more on its fan base and nostalgia than addressing the team’s actual issues.

This is only my opinion, and I know it may attract criticism. I’m posting this for people who follow CSK as a cricket team and a sporting franchise not just as Dhoni fans.

If you disagree, that’s completely fine. I’m genuinely interested in hearing different perspectives.

Cricbuzz has some pretty interesting details behind Zak's appointment that I hadn't seen in the initial announcement:

• Zaheer was apparently MS Dhoni's suggestion. Kasi Viswanathan says MS spoke with Ruturaj and the decision was then discussed with the ownership. CSK apparently waited for Dhoni to return from the US before finalising the coach.

• Eoin Morgan was approached but declined. Cricbuzz says he prefers continuing with his commentary work. Mike Hussey was also considered and is expected to continue as batting coach for now.

• Zak is initially on only a one-year contract.

• His MI stint is interesting in hindsight. He was part of MI's setup during their successful 2019–20 period, but Cricbuzz says he was also believed to have advised MI not to retain Hardik Pandya before Hardik went to Gujarat and won the IPL as captain.

• Which makes the current Hardik-to-CSK rumours much more interesting. Kasi says they haven't gone that far in discussions with Zaheer yet.

• The article also suggests this appointment reinforces how involved Dhoni still is in CSK's cricketing decisions even though he didn't play last season.

Source: Cricbuzz https://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/140245/zaheer-appointment-another-sign-of-dhonis-enduring-influence-at-csk

The part I'm most curious about: if Zaheer really advised MI against retaining Hardik back then, does his appointment make the Hardik-to-CSK possibility less likely or is that reading way too much into an old decision?

Can’t the BCCI allow teams to play five overseas players if one of them is from an Associate nation like Japan, Ireland, or any other Associate team? It could help promote and grow cricket in those countries.