Data Analysis | IPL (2008–2020)

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The Indian Premier League or IPL is a T20 cricket tournament organized annually by the Board of Control for Cricket In India (BCCI). Eight city-based franchises compete with each other over six weeks to find the winner.

In this article, I have performed a descriptive analysis on the IPL dataset. Descriptive analysis answers the “what happened so far” by summarizing past data.

About the dataset: The dataset was taken from Kaggle, and it contains 2 CSV files, namely matches.csv and deliveries.csv. These files contain the information of each match summary and ball by ball details, respectively.

Data will talk to you if you’re willing to listen.

Without wasting much of your time, let's get started.

1. What was the count of matches played in each season?

• In season 2013, 76 matches were played, which was the highest so far.
• Each season, almost 60 matches were played. However, we see a spike in the number of matches from 2011 to 2013. This is because two new franchises, the Pune Warriors and Kochi Tuskers Kerala, were introduced, increasing the number of teams to 10.

2. How many runs were scored in each season?

• Season 2013 was the highest-scoring season (22,541 runs), followed by 2012 (22,453 runs)
• Season 2009 was the lowest-scoring season (16,320 runs).

3. What were the runs scored per match in different seasons?

• In season 2018, runs scored per match was 331.683333, which was the highest among others.
• In season 2009, runs scored per match was 286.315789, which was the lowest till now.

4. Which umpire has officiated the most number of IPL matches on-field?

• S Ravi had umpired in 121 matches, followed by Dharmasena, who had umpired in 94 matches.

5. Which team had won the most tosses?

• Mumbai Indians have won the most number of tosses, followed by Kolkata Knight Riders.

6. What does the team decide after winning the toss?

• After winning the toss, the team tends to field first most of the time.

7. How toss decision varies across seasons?

Since 2014, teams have mostly elected to field first. Especially since 2016, teams have chosen to field for more than 80% of the time except in season 2020.

8. Does winning the toss implies winning the game?

• Though winning the toss gives you an advantage, it doesn’t significantly imply that winning the toss helps win the game.

9. How many times chasing team had won the match?

• We can see that 435 out of 816 matches were won by the team batting second, while 364 matches were won by the team batting first.

10. Which all teams had won the IPL tournament?

• Mumbai Indians had won the IPL 5 times, while Chennai Super Kings had won it 3 times.

11. Which team had played the most matches?

• Mumbai Indians had played the most matches (203), followed by Royal Challengers Bangalore (195).
• There are two teams with almost the same names. Rising Pune Supergiants and Rising Pune Supergiant. Well, they are the same teams; no owners change. But it is more to do with superstitions.

12. Which team has the most wins?

• Mumbai Indians had won the most number of matches (120), followed by Chennai Super Kings (106).

13. Which team has the highest winning percentage?

• Rising Pune Supergiant has the highest win % of 62.50, followed by Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians.
• This is because they had played fewer matches.

14. Mumbai Indians v/s Chennai Super Kings head to head:

• Mumbai Indians is slight ahead of Chennai Super Kings in this heavy clash.
• The dominance was mainly seen in the 2019 season, where Mumbai defeated Chennai 4 out of 4 times they met, including the playoff and final.

15. Innings wise comparison between teams

• Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians median value are better than other teams while batting first.
• Royal Challengers Bangalore had scored 250+ in a single match and is the only team to achieve that feat.

16. Which team had scored the most 200+ scores?

• Royal Challengers Bangalore has scored the most 200+ score (18 times), followed by Chennai Super Kings, who has scored 17 times.

17. Which team has conceded 200+ runs the most?

• Kings XI Punjab has conceded 200+ runs 20 times, followed by Royal Challengers Bangalore (17).

18. What was the highest run scored by a team in a single match?

In season 2013, Royal Challengers Bangalore scored 263/5 against Pune Warriors India.

19. Which was the biggest win in terms of run margin?

• In season 2017, Mumbai Indians defeated Delhi Daredevils by a massive margin of 146 runs.

20. Which batsmen have played the most number of balls?

• Virat Kohli has played the most balls.
• David Warner and Chris Gayle are the only two foreign players in this top 10 list.

21. Who Is the leading run-scorer of the IPL?

• Virat Kohli is the leading run-scorer in IPL.
• One interesting thing to notice in this list is that MS Dhoni is the only player who bats down the order.

22. Who has hit the most number of 4's?

• Shikhar Dhawan holds the record for the most number of 4's.

23. Who has hit the most number of 6's?

• “The Universe Boss” Chris Gayle had smashed 349 sixes, most by any batsman.

24. Who has the highest strike rate (min. 100 balls)?

• Andre Russel has the highest strike rate, followed by K. Gowtham and B. Cutting.

25. Who is the leading wicket-taker?

• L. Malinga is the leading wicket-taker in IPL.
• Notice that 6 out of the top 10 are spin bowlers.

26. Which stadium has hosted the most number of matches?

• Eden Gardens has hosted the most number of matches.

27. Who has won the most MOM awards?

• AB de Villiers (23) have won the most MOM awards, followed by Chris Gayle (22)

28. What is the count of fours in each season?

• The highest number of four in a season was the 2013 season, while the season 2009 had the lowest count of 4's.

29. What is the count of sixes hit in each season?

• In season 2018, the maximum number of sixes were hit, while the lowest was observed in season 2009.

30. What is the count of runs scored from boundaries in each season?

31. What is the run contribution from boundaries in each season?

• In season 2018, 59.49 % runs of the total runs came from boundaries while 50.88 % runs came from boundaries in season 2009, which is the lowest.

32. Which team has scored the most runs in the first 6 overs?

• Mumbai Indians had scored the most runs in the first 6 overs, followed by Kings XI Punjab.

33. Which team has scored the most runs in the last 4 overs?

• Mumbai Indians had scored the most runs in the last 4 overs, followed by Royal Challengers Bangalore.

34. Which team has the best scoring run-rate in the first 6 overs?

• Gujarat Lions has the highest scoring run-rate in the first 6 overs, followed by Rising Pune Supergiant.

35. Which team has the best scoring run-rate in the last 4 overs?

• Chennai Super Kings have the highest scoring run-rate in the last 4 overs, followed by Mumbai Indians.

36. Batsmen Analysis : Virat Kohli

Total Fours and Sixes by Virat Kohli :

Run contributions :

• An interesting fact is that Virat Kohli has scored more runs by taking singles than by hitting 6

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Endnote: With that, we’ve come to the end of this article. I hope you had found this article insightful. Do share your views in the comment section.

Kaggle Notebook link: https://www.kaggle.com/pranjalverma08/detailed-analysis-of-ipl-data-2008-2020

Happy Exploring😀