IPL 2010 Schedule

In the previous post I had looked at how the schedule for the next IPL season should be like. This one is about the schedule for the last season and analysing how games were spread between teams and venues over the course of the season.

1. There is a slight disparity in the number of night games for each team. While four of them played 9 night games each, Chennai had 8 night games while Kolkata and Mumbai had 11 each. Deccan had 12 night games, perhaps justified since they didn't really have a home venue.
2. There was a very even spread of the number of weekend games for each team. Six of them had 6 six weekend games each while Bangalore and Delhi had 5 each.
3. Six of the eight teams had 5 home games at night while Rajasthan and Bangalore had 4 each. Considering Bangalore had one less game on the weekend maybe it should have had 5 home games at night. Rajasthan played 4 of their home games at Ahmedabad so maybe they could have had 5 home games at night too, although I had been to a couple of those games and both were sold out.
4. Again, there was a very even spread of the number of home games for each team on a weekend. Six of them had 3 home games each while Bangalore and Delhi had 2 each.
5. There was a little bit more variance when it came to the number of travel/rest days for each team compared to what I have proposed for next season. I guess it makes sense because there were a lot of days on which there was only one game. Sure the league could have given Bangalore more days at the expense of Kolkata but it's not like the difference was huge.

2011 IPL Fixtures: Changes and Additions

In my last post I came up with a draft for IPL fixtures for next season. Since then I've revisited the schedule as well as looked at the one from last season in order to see how evenly were matches spread out last season. The factors to be considered were:

1. Number of night games.
2. Number of weekend games.
3. Number of home games at night.
4. Number of home games over the weekend.
5. Number of rest/travel days.

 Based on these factors, this is the schedule I came up with.

The final is scheduled for a Friday but it can obviously be pushed back to a Saturday. I think Saturday is the best day to have the final as people don't have to worry about being late for work/school the following day. Also, this schedule leaves enough room to have the wildcard system I had proposed in an earlier post. Here's a summary of how the games are spread out keeping the aforementioned factors in mind.

1. Each team has 7 night games.
2. Eight teams have 4 weekend games each. Mumbai and Rajasthan have 3 and 5 respectively.
3. All teams have either 3 or 4 home games at night. Rajasthan who have 5 weekend games naturally have 3 home games at night while Mumbai who only have 3 weekend games have 4 home games at night.
4. Eight teams have 2 home games each on weekends. Rajasthan have 3 while Mumbai have 1. Another reason why Mumbai have more home games at night than Rajasthan.
5. Five teams have 19 rest/travel days each while the other five have 20 rest/travel days. You can't make it any more even than this.

As I mentioned in the last post, I have colour-coded the fixtures and given each team a specific code so that you can regenerate the schedule by simply reassigning the team codes. Again, first name in a fixture indicates the home team.

I will compare this schedule to the one from last season in another post.

Draft for 2011 IPL Fixtures

Since the IPL has come out with its format for the next three seasons, I decided to come up with what I think would be a good fixture list. It's based on what I felt would be the right way to split the 10 teams but I will also provide a key to ensure the fixtures can be tweaked just by changing the respective codes of the 10 teams.

Please note:

1. I have colour-coded the fixtures. The ones in light blue are games within the pool while those in dark blue are ones between teams from different groups.
2. The first team name in a particular fixture is that of the home team.
3. All teams play an equal number of day-night matches.
4. Total number of travel/rest days for each team.
5. There are some instances of a team playing on consecutive days, hence the matches on these days are scheduled at the team's home. For example, Punjab play Deccan and Kolkata on consecutive days at the start of Week 4. Hence, both games would be held at Punjab's home venue. Likewise for Kochi against Bangalore and Kolkata in Week 5.
6. The season ends with two of the most intense regional rivalries in India. Bangalore host Chennai while Delhi travel to Mumbai for the last game of the regular season.
7. You can tweak the fixtures by simply changing the team code. This ensures that this fixture list can be used year after year by just rotating the teams.
8. I have checked the fixtures for the last IPL season and it seems on an average a team had 23 rest/travel days. According to the schedule the number is 19.5. However, you can always space out the fixtures and make the IPL a 7-week tournament.