CSK’s Scene Contra
Okay.. before delving into analysing what happened to CSK in 2020, a year which just won't stop giving, I just wanted to share something personal. Its been five years since I started curating this blog and I am so happy that this blog has stood up to the initial idea and vision of being not very useful or meaningful to the readers of the blog. Will strive to keep it that way.
CSK has won only 4 of the first 12 matches. We can assume that the chances for making it to the playoffs are theoretically, practically, mathematically impossible after all we are not living in a Sivakarthikeyan movie. This is the first time CSK aren’t making to play-offs. Let’s take a look at how, why and what went wrong. It is easy to point fingers at a particular batsman or bowler and say he did not play well, he did not field well, he did not deserve a balcony, his star sign has recently caught Jenma Shani etc. But in this blog, we will take a look at how CSK has approached a game either while defending a total or chasing a score so far in all the previous seasons and how the current season differs from that.
Cricsheet.org has done a fantastic job of maintaining historic IPL ball by ball data and they also keep their site updated with the current season’s data. The data I am using for this blog has a total of 164 matches from the previous seasons including playoffs and finals and the first 12 games of the current 2020 season. Yea I know, the sample size of the current season is small, but CSK and other teams can’t play some 100 matches a season just give enough confidence for some stupid statistical analysis. So we will live with what we have.
Let’s see what percentage of match CSK has won batting 1st and 2nd across the seasons.
This season they have the poorest win rates either defending a score or chasing a total compared to all other seasons. Yea you must be knowing this and thinking “what ra? this is one insight ah? The point of this blog itself exists because CSKs did not win enough matches.” Okay. I get it. Let’s move on. But before we go ahead here is the number of games CSK have chased and defended across the seasons.
2011,2012 CSK played most of the matches defending a total while 2018, 19, 20 they mostly chased a set target.
You might think, why all these gradients are in purple which is not even close to a CSK themed colour. It’s okay. This season, at least here let them have a purple patch.
Let’s see how much CSK miss their home, The Anbu Den.
Home and Away doesn't apply for season 2020 and 2009 as IPL was held in a different country. But here I have separated them as home and away matches because if they had been allowed to be held in India they would have been home fixtures for CSK. See how bad CSK miss their home in 2020. And Given that they have fared well in those fixtures when it was held in South Africa in 2009, maybe CSK missed the crowd and noise more than their home. Spirits are not in the level they used to be and they are reflected in poor win rates. And it's worthy to mention that CSK managed to become champions in 2011 in spite of having a poorer away record compared to 2020. Maybe if the IPL had been held in India this year, you wouldn't be reading this blog right now.
Now let’s move on to understand how the chases and defences fared compared to last season.
Batting First
Compared to previous seasons this season is characterised by very slow starting overs with an outlier and over 4. CSK hasn’t utilised power play as much it used to. This is followed by sluggish middle overs compared to the previous trend. Last two overs are good compared to previous seasons, but it's not good enough to make up for other sluggish overs.
CSK has on average lost more wickets than it used to in any given over. There are early few wickets till 6 overs and it has stabilised a bit till 15th over as middle-order plays cautiously. This also explains the sluggishness in the middle overs portrayed in the previous graph.
Bowling First
CSK has started bowling as good as they used to. Here also there is a surprise spike in the 4th over. Overs 14–18 they have conceded a lot of runs before bringing the scoring rate down in the last couple of overs. Middle overs are good or at least similar when compared to previous seasons.
Compared to the batting, the disparity in taking wickets while is minimal.
Batting Second
CSK has lost the same or lesser wickets than it used to at any point in the first 10 overs. Then they have gone on to play more cautiously until they start giving away easy wickets from the 17th over.
While chasing a total, instead of comparing actual runs let’s compare how much CSK allows the required run rate to climb or fall across overs. As the target to chase differ in each match comparing average required run rates across over (till 19th over) will paint a better picture.
CSK start the chase compared to similar fashion compared to the previous seasons. But as they start playing cautiously from 10th over, the required run rate stats climbing and starts diverging. In previous years CSK managed to keep required run rate gettable in the final overs, that is something that has gone for a toss this season.
Bowling Second
In the 4 matches in which CSK has defended a total, bowlers have started really well in the first 6 overs and went on to regress in the middle overs. But they have still managed to catch up with the previous years' trend in the final overs.
CSK’s bowling is not too bad. If something needs a push it’s the batting. The batsmen in the middle overs need not be explosive, volcanic or eruptive but at least there has to be some Spark.
