IPL 'Six': Who would I pick to win?

With all these allegations going around, what can we trust in this IPL? I generally trust numbers, so I am going to go with that for the sake of this article. What is (or was?) special about the matches are the almost equally strong teams fighting it out, leading to loads of last over finishes. More often than not, there are two or three overs or so left, with the chasing team requiring at least one or two sixes plus a boundary and a few singles here and there.

If I was a captain this season and needed to send out a batsman to hit sixes against a fiendish fielding side that stops every would-have-been boundary, only two players are close to certain to hit those two sixes (and more) for me – Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard. Their mad-man shows this season tilt the averages in their favour, with the guys hitting a six once in 9 balls on an average. David Miller and, surprisingly, Mitchell Marsh are not far behind with a six off every 10.6 deliveries. Thisara Perera got Hyderabad out of some serious run rate starvations with his sixes and he’s fifth on the list. The first Indian on the list is, as expected, Captain Cool with one six for every two overs he’s played.

Note that this does not include today’s match.

IPL 6: Raining Sixes

Batsman	Six every n balls	Gets out every n balls
Chris Gayle	8.9	37.8
Kieron Pollard	9.7	27.0
David Miller	10.6	36.3
Mitchell Marsh	10.6	15.1
Thisara Perera	11.6	16.3
MS Dhoni	11.9	21.6
Yuvraj Singh	12.7	15.8
Darren Sammy	13.2	22.0
Harbhajan Singh	13.4	13.4
Angelo Mathews	13.9	19.9

These are averages, and we can’t just ignore standard deviation numbers. They are the bookie equivalents of the math world, playing spoilsport when things finally start to look interesting. Taking that roughly into account, Mitchell Marsh, Thisara Perera and Harbhajan Singh bow out of the race – likely to get out before achieving the target if there are two overs left (and almost certainly if there are three overs to go). That is what we would expect as well. What is unexpected is that Yuvraj Singh is part of that group. The fact that he is one of the most likely batsmen to get that six and also get out, suggests how he has thrown caution to the wind this season – much like one Vindoo guy, but in a very different, legal way. If there are three overs left, then Dhoni becomes the batsman of choice to get that six ahead of Marsh II and Perera.

Hitting a six is not the only way to finish a match – I remember one Australian who used to run 10+ runs per over not very long ago. If we go with strike rates and the likelihood of getting out alone, Chennai’s MS Dhoni climbs to the top of the list! He’s followed by the one nicknamed the ‘Killer’, David Miller and the second most dangerous RCB-ian batsman, AB de Villiers. The fourth spot goes to his fellow team mate Chris Gayle. That’s three of the top four who didn’t make it to the playoffs.

IPL6: Strikes & Outs

Batsman	Strike Rate	Gets out every n balls
MS Dhoni	167.2	21.6
David Miller	164.6	36.3
AB Devilliers	164.4	21.9
Chris Gayle	156.3	37.8
Ravindra Jadeja	151.1	19.0
Suresh Raina	150.5	30.3
Stuart Binny	146.1	22.8
Shane Watson	144.3	28.6
Kieron Pollard	143.6	27.0
Harbhajan Singh	143.2	13.4

Chennai’s strength this season has been its finishers and that shows in the next two players on this list, with the Lord, Ravindra Jadeja, at position 5 and Suresh Raina at 6. The top 10 list would also include Stuart Binny, Shane Watson (both from Rajasthan), Pollard and again, Harbhajan Singh (Mumbai duo), in that order. Harbhajan has been quite a useful batsman this year, hasn’t he? I should point out that Rajagopal Sathish didn’t miss the top 10 by much on both these lines, but the time at which he comes in during the match requires him to go after the bowler and throw his wicket away, much like Bhajji, Perera or Lord Jadeja.

There are so many other factors to consider to select who could be a better finisher, like what the rest of the bowling attack comprises of, who’s lucky on that particular day, what the pitch looks like (flat track specialists like Murali Vijay come to mind), which bowler wears a towel while bowling etc. It’s just that these numbers looked interesting enough for a quick write-up.