Which Franchise League Is Most Entertaining?

The men's cricket world is awash pinch franchise leagues.

There's nan Indian Premier League (IPL), nan Pakistan Super League (PSL) and nan SA20.

Australia's Big Bash is 1 of nan originals, and location are others successful nan Caribbean (CPL), and United Arab Emirates (ILT20).

Then there's The Hundred - nan 100-ball outlier.

That's to sanction conscionable a few... but which is nan champion league?

BBC Sport, pinch thief from CricViz, looks astatine immoderate cardinal metrics to effort to reply that very question.

Good question!

Well, we person looked astatine a scope of metrics, including things for illustration nan mean number of sixes per game, dot-ball percentage, nan effect of location advantage, nan style of bowling taking nan wickets and really galore games went down to nan past complete aliases moreover nan past ball.

The metrics are subjective - immoderate group for illustration tons of runs, different for illustration a low-scoring thriller. Fast bowling gets nan juices going for some, while others for illustration nan sheer artistry of spin.

What isn't successful uncertainty though is that nan neutral - and almost surely those who extremity up connected nan winning broadside successful specified situations - for illustration a lucifer which goes nan distance.

The Hundred was expected to supply those nail-biting finishes because of nan squeezed quality of nan format. So has it?

In short, yes! Only nan IPL has had marginally much matches connected mean spell down to nan last ball.

If we widen nan metric to matches which spell down to nan last complete (or 5 balls successful The Hundred's case), nan IPL again comes retired connected apical (28.9%), pinch nan PSL 2nd (27.5%) and The Hundred pushed down to 3rd (24.4%).

But does location advantage play a cardinal portion successful really these matches cookware out? For this, we could only look astatine The Hundred, IPL, Big Bash and SA20.

The SA20 was nan convention containing nan highest percent of matches won by nan location broadside (60%), pinch nan lowest being nan IPL (45.4%).

Fans of T20 leagues are fed connected a fast-food fare of fours, pinch a patient broadside of sixes.

From shot one, teams are connected nan beforehand ft and muscling nan shot into nan stands.

Again, nan IPL is nan king here, followed by (again!) nan PSL and nan ILT20.

Curiously, The Hundred is bottommost connected this scoring, but is that because location is simply a much favourable equilibrium betwixt bat and ball?

It's difficult to look past nan truth nan runs travel successful Asia, while location are less boundaries successful places you'd expect bowlers to person a fairer shake: England, Australia and South Africa.

In position of mean first-innings total, nan PSL (180) edges nan IPL (179) by 1 run. All leagues are successful nan 160-180 ballpark, pinch nan ILT20 (161) bottommost of nan pile. The Hundred's mean first-innings people is 144 but teams play 20 balls fewer. If we extrapolate to a afloat T20, nan mean successful The Hundred is 167.

Well, nan astir prolific spot for spinners to return their wickets is not arsenic you mightiness expect - successful India, Pakistan aliases nan UAE. It's really nan Caribbean, nan location of nan legendary accelerated bowlers of nan 1980s and 1990s.

The faster bowlers - and this includes mean gait - bask nan astir occurrence successful Australia.

In fact, nan percent of wickets taken by gait complete rotation is akin crossed nan committee - only nan CPL is person to a 50-50 split.

One of nan things we looked astatine is nan value of subordinate successful each league, based connected world caps crossed each formats.

We looked astatine nan mean number of world caps held by nan starting XIs successful each crippled and present is wherever nan ILT20 comes retired connected apical (423), followed by nan PSL (351) and nan IPL (335).

There is simply a immense disparity present betwixt nan apical of nan heap and nan bottom, pinch nan Big Bash mean of conscionable 145 almost 300 caps short of nan ILT20.

This could beryllium attributed to nan truth Australia's champion cricketers are playing an world summertime astatine nan aforesaid clip arsenic nan Big Bash is being contested, whereas successful India, for example, nan full cricketing world stops for nan IPL window.

Another facet is that nan ILT20 allows up to 9 overseas players per team, compared to nan 3 aliases 4 spaces fixed up for players from overseas successful different competitions.

The ILT20 manages to pull truthful galore players from overseas because of nan money connected connection - only nan IPL pays its players more, pinch 1 study successful Forbes suggesting teams successful nan UAE person a net headdress of much than £2m for a month-long competition, compared to nan £1.5m offered by nan Big Bash for a title that runs for almost doubly arsenic long.

One of nan sticks utilized to hit definite leagues is really agelong they return to complete. How often person you heard a commentator opportunity that IPL matches past 4 hours now?

Well, successful nan latest loop of each competition, it's really nan CPL - nan convention wherever rotation is king - which takes nan longest connected average, pinch matches lasting conscionable six minutes short of that four-hour figure.

The IPL is 2nd connected nan database (three hours 44 minutes) pinch nan Big Bash nan astir economical of nan T20 leagues successful position of clip (three hours 10 minutes).

The mean men's Hundred crippled - which is 40 balls shorter, don't hide - lasted 2 hours 42 minutes.

As subjective arsenic it is, we wanted to effort to springiness a consciousness of what nan champion convention is, truthful we looked astatine 5 cardinal metrics: mean fours and sixes scored, mean strike-rate of each batter, nan percent of last-ball finishes and nan mean number of world caps per game.

We past scaled each metric from 0 to 1 pinch nan top-performing squad scoring 1 and nan lowest scoring 0.

Adding up these six scores gave america an wide 'Entertainment Index', allowing america to rank nan franchises for entertainment.

The IPL, nan golden modular of short-format franchise cricket leagues, came retired connected top.

Then comes nan PSL and ILT20, pinch The Hundred successful 4th - a respectable decorativeness for a title which is astir to beryllium turbo-charged by nan wealthiness of its new investors.

The Big Bash propped up nan rest, suggesting a tourney that has for truthful agelong been a precocious constituent successful galore cricket fans' winters mightiness request to germinate if it is to compete pinch nan newest, shiniest models of T20 leagues.

That Cricket Australia has started the process of inviting investment suggests this is very overmuch nether way.

Tournaments taken into relationship for this project: