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Apparently it’s the Deccan Chargers. They won the IPL, therefore they’re the best.
The format of the IPL is brilliant. It revolves solely around identifying the best team over a period of time to show which team is best. It’s totally fair and it lets supporters know which team should be considered the champions.
Having done this, they then go through a half-arsed knock-out bit at the end, which is all about manufacturing ‘big games’ and little to do with finding the best team.
Deccan Chargers won the IPL in 2009, despite losing half of their league games and finishing fifth from bottom. Not fourth. Fifth from bottom.
Deccan Chargers’ 50/50 win-loss ratio is awe inspiring.
In any real tournament, “fourth” would just be third loser.
KC im suprised no mention of the 3 hour long speech by the lisping Modi, the presence of Akon, and the cringeworthy feeling of watching it all unfold on a cricket field
In effect, you are saying that NZ won the 1992 World Cup. And Pakistan, in your books, won the 1999 World Cup?
World Cup formats are less than ideal, but at least in those two cases, each team had only played the other teams once before the knock-out stages.
If you play everyone twice, it’s a league and leagues are decided without knock-outs.
I put up a table yesterday of the win % of the 8 teams in 2 seasons of the IPL.. Deccan stands 7th, just a few basis points ahead of KKR.. and they have lost the most number of matches than any other IPL team.. yet they have a trophy to show for it.
Cruel?
Maybe, but I guess as was discussed, it probably is about when you win, rather than how many.
The English are, in general, magnificently unexposed to the phenomenon which the league with a play-off. There is a valid point about indication of general performance, but they tend to look a bit silly when they insist that ‘unfamiliar’ systems do not exist.
Apart from the question of why playing everyone twice rather than once should matter at neutral venues, of course such a system produces ‘interesting’ results! The really funny thing with the 92 world cup was that Pakistan ‘shouldn’t’ have even made the finals based on their round-robin performance alone.
In the IPL case, I would have thought that the varying availability of international players has already killed any idea that we are looking at some sort of “best team over the whole period”.
What are you drivelling on about? I tuned in to your it’s-not-a-blog-it’s-not-a-blog today expecting to see some sarcastic / ironic comments on how the IPL is not a proper competition, and how it’s all run for the money, and instead I see comments like:
“It revolves solely around identifying the best team over a period of time to show which team is best.”
What rubbish. Anyone who wrote such a thing must be either mad or be being sarcastic / ironic. Oh, wait a minute, I see now. You were being sarcastic / ironic. Right. Sorry about that. Carry on.
Jonathan,
Saying that the English are unfamiliar with a league with a play off at the end to determine the winner is unfair. The English Rugby Premiership uses just such a format as you described.
Can’t say I agree with it though. Surely the team that performs consistently well over a sustained period should win, not the team that scrambles some wins together at the end of the season.
Playoffs are fun to watch. May be it’s the American in me, but I really do think that playoffs determine the best team.