Data check: The curious case of centuries in IPL

It’s become an annual ritual in the Indian Premier League for those interested in nerdy statistics or curious patterns, whenever a Kolkata Knight Riders player nears a century.

On April 18, 2008 the phenomenon called the IPL came to life. And it was not just any steady start. It was a whirlwind. When Brendon McCullum smacked that unbeaten 158* for KKR in the first-ever IPL match, the league got a dream start.

On April 11, 2021, when Nitish Rana was dismissed for 80 in KKR’s first match of the 14th season against Sunrisers Hyderabad, one of the more jaw-dropping statistical wait continued. Not a single KKR batsman has scored a century in the league since McCullum did on the first night. Rana himself has come close thrice in the last couple of seasons, with three scores of 80-or more in his last innings. Dinesh Karthik’s 97* against Royals in 2019 remains the second-highest score by a KKR batsman.

Now, that got us thinking. KKR have not done half bad in the tournament over the years. They are the only team other than Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians to have won multiple IPL titles. Is it a big deal that they have not had a centurion since their current head coach?

Make no mistake, hitting a century in a T20 match more often than that helps your side win. For instance, in the IPL, out of the 63 scored so far, 48 have been centuries in winning cause while only 15 have come in defeats. That’s a success rate just more than 76%.

But a closer look at the scorers of those centuries reveals an interesting pattern. Out of the 63 centuries (before IPL 2021), 36 had been scored by batsmen playing for Kings XI Punjab (13), Royal Challengers Bangalore (13), Delhi Daredevils / Capitals (10). Those are three teams that have not won the title even once.

Whereas Chennai Super Kings (8), Mumbai Indians (4), Kolkata Knight Riders (1) accounted for 13 centuries. But they also account for ten IPL titles between them. This is not to say scoring fewer centuries is helpful, and no direct correlation can be made, but it does suggest collective batting efforts mean more in a format like T20 rather than one batsman scoring big.

As an extension, Mumbai Indians — the most successful side in IPL history — have not had a batsman score a century since 2014 (Lendl Simmons). In fact, none of the four MI centuries so far have come in seasons where the title was won by Rohit Sharma and Co.

Which takes us to the next data set. Of the total of 63 centuries that have been scored in the tournament, only four of those came in a team’s title-winning season. The eventual champions did not have a single century-maker during the course of a title-winning campaign in 11 out of the 13 editions till date.

This offers no conclusive proof as a statistic, but in a roundabout way, it lends to credence one of the cliches we hear in cricket: individual brilliance can win you matches, to win tournaments takes a lot more.