Which franchise league is most entertaining?

Franchise leagues are a burgeoning trend in men’s cricket.

The SA20, Pakistan Super League, and the Indian Premier League (PSL) are just a few of the leagues.

One of the originals is Australia’s Big Bash, and others are in the United Arab Emirates (ILT20) and the Caribbean (CPL).

The Hundred, the 100-ball outlier, is next.

Which league is the best, to name a few, but that’s just a few.

Good question, I think.

We have examined a number of metrics, including the average number of sixes per game, the dot-ball percentage, the effects of home advantage, the bowling style, the number of games that ended with the last over or even the final ball.

The results are subjective; some people prefer a high-scoring thriller, while others prefer a lot of runs. Some people enjoy quick bowling, while others prefer the artistry of spin.

The neutral, and almost certainly those who end up on the winning side in such a situation, prefer a match that goes the distance, though, is not in doubt.

Because of the format’s tight schedule, The Hundred was expected to deliver those nail-biting closes. Has it, then?

The IPL again comes in at top (28.9%), with the PSL second (27.5%), and The Hundred is pushed down to third (24.4%) if we apply the metric to matches that end in the final over (or five balls in the case of The Hundred).

Does home advantage, however, play a significant role in how these matches turn out? We could only look at The Hundred, the IPL, Big Bash, and SA20 for this.

Fans of T20 leagues are provided with a fast-food fours diet and a six-pack lunch.

Teams start out strong and muscling the ball into the stands.

Again, IPL domineers, followed by (once more!) the ILT20 and the PSL.

Curiously, The Hundred is only second in terms of scoring, but is this because the bat and ball have a better balance?

There are fewer boundaries in areas where bowlers would ordinarily have a fairer shake, such as England, Australia, and South Africa, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that there are more runs flowing in Asia.

However, India, Pakistan, or the UAE are not as prolific places for spinners to take their wickets as you might expect. The legendary fast bowlers of the 1980s and 1990s resided in the Caribbean.

The fastest bowlers in Australia are known for their success, including medium pace.

We also considered the player’s quality in each league in light of their international caps in all competitions.

The ILT20 comes out on top (423), followed by the PSL (351), and the IPL (335), when we looked at the average number of international caps the starting XIs (335) held each game.

The Big Bash average is just 145 caps, almost 300 caps short of the ILT20, which is a significant difference between the top of the pile and the bottom.

The fact that Australia’s top cricketers are playing an international summer while the Big Bash is being contested could explain why the rest of the world stops for the IPL window, for instance.

In contrast to the three or four spaces available for players from abroad in other competitions, the ILT20 allows up to nine players from abroad per team.

Only the IPL pays its players more than the equivalent of a salary cap of more than £2 million for a month-long competition, which is why the ILT20 attracts so many players from abroad, according to a report in Forbes that suggests teams in the UAE have a salary cap of more than £2 million, as opposed to the £1.5 million offered by the Big Bash for a competition that lasts for almost twice as long.

How long do certain leagues take to complete, one of the deciding factors. How frequently have IPL games now last for four hours been said by commentators?

Actually, in the most recent iteration of each competition, the CPL, which is known for having the longest games on average, with matches lasting just six minutes short of that four-hour mark.

The Big Bash is the T20 league’s most affordable in terms of time (three hours, 10 minutes), while the IPL is the second-longest (three hours, 44 minutes).

We looked at five key indicators to get an idea of what the best league is, including the average number of international caps per game and the average number of fours and sixes scored.

The highest-performing team receiving 1 and the lowest-performing team receiving 0, respectively, was then scaled down each metric.

By combining these six scores, we were able to calculate the overall “Entertainment Index” that would help us categorize the entertainment franchises.

The IPL, the gold standard for short-format franchise cricket leagues, came out on top.

The Hundred is in fourth place in a competition that is about to be boosted by the wealth of its new investors. Then comes the PSL and ILT20.

The Big Bash bolstered the rest, suggesting that a tournament that has been a focal point for so long for many cricket fans may need to change in order to compete with the newest, shiniest T20 leagues.

Tournaments incorporated in this project: