How ratings work

One number per season

The game has 156 squads of twelve, which makes 1,872 player-seasons across 436 players. Each one carries a single rating between 62 and 99. It is a hand-set judgement of how good that player was in that IPL season, in the role he played for that team. It is not worked out by a formula from a stats table, and it is not an official rating from the IPL or anyone else.

The same player moves a long way between seasons. Bumrah goes from 74 in his first season in 2013 to 96 in 2020. Narine is a 96 as a spinner in 2012 and a 96 again in 2024, this time as an all-rounder who opened the batting.

Only 80 player-seasons in the whole game are rated 90 or more, which is about one in twenty-three.

Batting and bowling

A match needs to know how well a player bats and how well he bowls, so the one rating is split into both, according to the role he played that season.

So Kohli in 2016 bats at 99 and bowls at 30, Bumrah in 2024 bowls at 94 and bats at 26, and an all-rounder rated 90 bats at 88 and bowls at 86. All-rounders give up a little at each skill to be useful at both.

Playing out of position

If a player filled more than one role in his IPL career, every one of those roles is his own in every season, at no cost. Kohli batted in the middle order for years before he opened, so Kohli 2016 can bat at three for the full 99.

Outside his own roles a player can still fill some places, but he loses rating points for it, taken off his overall rating and off the skill that place uses.

• Any move not in the table is not allowed: a spinner never becomes a seamer, and a specialist batter never bowls.
• Keeping wicket is only open to genuine keepers, and a keeper can only open if he actually opened in the IPL.
• An all-rounder moved into the attack has to bowl the way he really bowled, pace or spin.
• A handful of genuine two-role cricketers lose only half the usual points, and never less than one.

From ratings to results

Your team's batting and bowling

Your team's batting is the average batting of your openers, middle order, keeper and all-rounders. Its bowling is the average bowling of your all-rounders, pace bowlers and spinners. All-rounders count in both, which is why a good one is worth so much. Every pick moves one of those averages, so one weak pick costs a side in every match it plays.

Inside a match

Each innings is played ball by ball over twenty overs. The gap between the batting side's batting and the bowling side's bowling sets the chance of a wicket on each ball, from about one in thirty-five to one in twelve, and tilts dot balls towards fours and sixes. A chase that falls behind the rate takes more risks and loses more wickets.

Form

Before each league game both sides get a form swing of up to 16 points either way on their batting and on their bowling. Most days it is small, sometimes it is not, and that is why the best XI in the room still loses games and why 14–0 is so rare.

The opposition

Opponents are rated on the same scale as your XI, and each league opponent's strength is drawn fresh for that game within the range for your setting. Playoff sides are picked from the top of that range and above it.

What the stats on player cards are

Player cards in the game show runs, strike rate, wickets or economy next to the rating. Those figures are illustrations drawn from the rating, so a higher-rated batter shows more runs at a faster strike rate. They give a feel for the kind of season a rating stands for. They are not that player's real IPL figures, and they play no part in the simulation.