The IPL runs scored per over scoring trends

Given that the 2021 season of IPL is already underway, I thought of revisiting this dataset that I have been doing analysis on. It’s quite refreshing to see how we look at the same data very differently each time we see it and the hidden nuggets of insights that we encounter. I have written about IPL and the data analysis in the past here, here and here!

This time I am looking at the big picture and trying to answer the question “How are runs scored across overs in the 20 overs that is played in the game”. I explain this in just three charts:

CHART #1

The first chart focuses on runs scored per over (average across all seasons). The top half represents 1st innings and bottom half, 2nd Innings. Immediately interesting trends are noticeable:

1. Over #1 is the least scoring of all the overs
2. For some reason a sharp decline in average score in over #7. Distinctly visible across both innings and no immediate reason that I can think of…interesting
3. Over #20 is the most lucrative in 1st Innings while over #18 is the highest for 2nd innings. In fact, last three overs — have an increasing trend for the first innings and a declining one for second. I can think of reasons for this also being the fact that for relatively moderate or low scoring games, the winning total is achieved upfront.

CHART #2

This chart depicts the runs scored (brighter colors and bigger sizes indicate more runs ) per over across time. The 20th over in the first innings 2019 was a blockbuster over in the sense that an average of 14.1 runs got scored that year. Compare this to say the first over in the first innings 2013 when only an average of 5 runs was scored. Overall one can also see the shades getting brighter and the shapes getting bigger as one moves from the bottom to the top (indicating that recent years have been bigger scores) and from the left to the right (naturally indicating that average runs scored per over increase as the innings near a finish.

CHART #3:

This chart is a half hearted attempt to understand the patterns in the teams — on the same metric, i.e. average runs scored per over. Three or four distinct patterns emerge:

1. Chennai Super Kings shows tremendous consistency in the average runs scored when comparing them between the two innings. Goes to show to a certain extent that the innings may not be impacting the performance of the team
2. Both Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore appear to end their first innings on a big high as compared to their second innings. The confounding factor also being that they may be such good chasers that they don’t need to wait till the 20th over to run down a total!

This short analysis has naturally raised more questions than answers, which is what any good data analysis should do. A short note would be appropriate to state here that the above analysis excludes super-overs.

I’ll probably look to researching a bit more on the patterns this analysis has raised and possibly a different angle to answer the same questions that this analysis sought to answer.