Arbusers

IPL 2024 Qualifier 2, Rajasthan Royals vs SunRisers Hyderabad has just started at the legendary Chepauk Cricket Ground!

In my opinion, today's clash will be a collision between two of the most prominent contemporary Cricket Coaches' Minds.

I think the whole evolution of Rajasthan Royals in recent years is due to Kumar Sangakkara. I have to stress the plenty of the Royals' number of IPL games, when the pre-match value of Royals' odds was established by the Model, is simply due to Sangakkara's tactical approaches, compared to the insufficient funds invested in this team by the owners.
His previous work for the Marylebone Cricket Club is a big warning for those, modeling the Cricket games for a reason.
Watching all the Sangakkara's tactical approaches and the evolution of the Rajasthan Royals' games in the IPL games he was involved in the last couple of years, is a pure pleasure for the observers.

Daniel Vettori resurrected the Sunrisers Hyderabad team from the dead in his first season as an SRH coach.
Vettori's portfolio of heavy batting and more than risky tactical approaches, causing extreme Wins & Losses in both Royal Challengers Bangalore in the past and also in Sunrisers Hyderabad now, reminds me of Gulliver's Travel by Jonathan Swift: Part One - A Voyage to Lilliput, and Part Two - A Voyage to Brobdingnag.

To determine the correct probabilities before today's game, I used a lot of personal observations, my own data sheets, personally constructed graphics and so on.

To build today's Model were processed:
- Starting line-ups as usual;
- Sangakkara's historically observed less risky coaching approaches and when exactly they're most probably win (based on historical data);
- The most likely RR tactical approach today;
- The likely overhaul of Vettori's batting approach today after the lessons learned from the game against the Kolkata Knight Riders days ago;
- Plenty of other things.

I generally disagree with some of the odds posted today regarding implied probabilities.

Let's enjoy the game now.

Your opinions?

Right now during the Strategic Timeout, a rare event occurs - a hidden value in one of the secondary markets, despite Abhishek Sharma's 4.33 E/R and Ahmed's 4.00, considering Rovman Powell's 33 S/R...

I have goosebumps, remembering again, and again and again the last Over of the IPL 2023 Grand Final and especially what happened between 01:27 AM and 01:33 AM at Ahmedabad when Chennai Super Kings won the IPL 2023 Title from a truly hopeless situation (heavy rain before CSK batting part, and the D/L method involved) within the last two balls of IPL 2023 as the visiting team... look at the lonely Ravindra Jadeja, the left-hand-style Batsman, the Genius awaiting the last ball and also the Gujarat Titans captain Hardik Pandya & the Bowler Mohit Sharma's chatting before the last IPL'2023 bowling delivery circa 01:33 AM!!!

youtube.com/watch?v=njt5zLWrKok

Despite the batting failure of MS Dhoni that day (Mohit Sharma took the Wckt again, also vs Conway & Rayudu!!!), remember that MS Dhoni's excellent work as a WicketKeeper earlier that match (removing both Saha and Shubman Gill) plus Devon Conway & Ajinkya Rahane's stable work (47 and 27 Runs respectively during a very important time interval of that Final) were amongst the basis of the success.
I'm pretty sure that coach Stephen Fleming, under pressure year after year on exactly how to solve the task of rejuvenating the Old CSK Army and maintaining current success with minimal risk taken, regrets the absence of the masterstroke of Ambati Rayudu and Devon Conway during the IPL 2024!


Now it's time for the Grand Finale of the IPL T20 2024, Kolkata Knight Riders vs SunRisers Hyderabad has just started!

Today I personally decided to choose hybrid Model tune-ups (mostly conservative plus some required experimental settings for some reason), and amongst them are:
- The interpolation of some variants of the last battle between Kolkata Knight Riders and SunRisers Hyderabad (remember the Qualifier One a few days ago), but interpolated to the sluggish Chepauk's pitch compared to the Ahmedabad's one;
- Same as above, but an extrapolation of the most likely tactical decisions today of the coaches, based on what I have exactly observed from the decisions of both coaches Chandrakant Pandit & Daniel Vettori in their coaching careers so far;
- In order to simplify the above modeling task, some restrictions are applied in the transition from First-Class Cricket format to T20 format (Beta-Model), that's why the Transition Matrix is simplified to some extent. This carries additional risk, so additional precautions are necessary, what food for thought this is...;
- The adaptability of Pandit's approaches and the probabilities of their implementation in the T20 format in just 2 consecutive years in the Kolkata Knight Riders team (#7 and #1 respectively in the regular IPL season before the playoffs), tons of Statistics & Data are publicly available…;
- Applying the most probable correction factor to Daniel Vettori's tactical approaches (spotted by me when he was at the helm of Royal Challengers Bangalore & SunRisers Hyderabad in the last 10 years);
- Vettori's remarkable transformation during the Qualifier 2 clash a few days ago in Chepauk against Sangakkara's Rajasthan Royals, when he refused to apply some of his heavier weapons to give the SRH team more solid performance and also the modeled preliminary probable result of similar rulings against Pandit's KKR today, granted today's approach by SRH team will be similar to some extent?
- I'm still wondering who exactly between four or the five SunRisers Hyderabad bowlers will be tasked against the duo of Sunil Narine & Andre Russell (apparently Russell will be late on the pitch as a Batsman if he appears), but the Matrix of some probabilities has been constructed by having given that Vettori will order some surprises for the most prominent KKR duo in terms of probable different fielding approaches. Maybe a special adopted Slip & Gully plus slightly different fielding SRH positions against those players or something similar?
- I've modeled two (rarely spotted three) main likely Dre Russ' bowling approaches and one of them is pretty vulnerable from what I've seen so far, but not many teams have responded appropriately so far... So I wonder what exactly would be the Vettori's point of view today. The million dollar question…
- Daniel Vettori is the only contemporary T20 cricket coach who would transform his team in no time into an ultra-heavy hitting mode by accepting the extreme level of risk. I'm wondering how exactly to calculate the correct probability (< X%) of Kolkata Knight Riders being attacked today similar to what was seen on 15th April 2024 in Bengaluru, SunRisers Hyderabad vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru 287/3:262/7 and the exact right early spotted triggers...
- The initial line-ups;
- The decision of Sunrisers Hyderabad to bat first;
- And so on, and so forth...

Let's enjoy the IPL 2024 Final now.

IPL 2024 is in History,

Kolkata Knight Riders are Champions. SunRisers are second.
IPL 2023, KKR - 7th. Out of Playoffs. IPL 2024 - KKR are 1st.

After becoming a coaching Legend in the country - the Ranji Trophy winner at the helm of Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh & Vidarbha teams, now he is on the Olympus among the Gods, winning the IPL.

As it was once written in the literature: “I believe the World will be saved by Beauty.” Beauty is a very complex thing, combining a beautiful Mind, beautiful Soul, charm, various human talents and their expression, aesthetics, empathy, etc, etc.

I believe Ms. Kavya Maran - CEO of SunRisers Hyderabad will be happy both on the Cricket ground and in the office and she continues to provide huge emotional support to the players.

IPL 2023, SRH - ultimate, 10th. IPL 2024 - SRH finished 2nd, overwhelming some records in IPL striking history.

Bravissimo!

On the Cricket ground, the Most Charming CEO of all IPL teams is supporting Her team:

youtube.com/watch?v=Ii-f0df3P5Y

In the Office:

youtube.com/watch?v=7DYxWDNU2oQ


By the way, I remember old SunRisers Hyderabad - the Champions team plus/minus two-year interval, during Kane Williamson's time. That SRH team under Tom Moody was capable of defending a very low batting total vs currently much stronger teams through exceptional bowling efforts…
Why exactly is Kane Williamson out of SRH nowadays?

The T20 World Cup clash USA vs Pakistan is goin' to start in a few minutes in Dallas,

To pick the best tune-ups for today's Model, I dug into my old data, stats and personal impressions for the players and games of the last edition of the Major League Cricket of the USA - 2023. It was an excellent testing ground for T20 Cricket when I spotted a lot of American Cricket players and their abilities.
Overall, I think the outcome of that match depends on Pakistan's tactical approach today. Pakistan's Cricketing power could easily overwhelm the surging USA team or their misjudgment at some stage (middle Overs?) would lead to hypothetical failure.
I decided to choose well-selected ∆t intervals of that match, based on what I spotted in the last USA T20 International matches and plenty of other factors. Here I am referring to the time slots when the USA team would hypothetically try to disrupt Pakistan's bowling and batting efforts.
Again, I think the approach of the green team today will be decisive. It is not the same whether the trio of Babar Azam - Fakhar Zaman - Mohammad Rizwan has a clear vision from the start or prefers to start safe and change some things much later in the game.
As for Andries Gous's probabilities, I remember of Pakistan's cooperative bowling effort in the MLC'23 Washington vs San Francisco match when the initial bowling attack from le Roux to Gous was handled with ease but Shadab Khan later restricted Gous to some degree before the quick dismissal of Gous via LBW from the fast Bowler Haris Rauf!
All those players are in the initial line-ups today.

And so on.

Your opinions?

Netravalkar dismissed Mohammad Rizwan!!!
An unexpected opportunity has now arisen in a market other than MoneyLine.
By the way, Netravalkar took 6 Wckts in the aforementioned Washington vs San Francisco match if I am not mistaken….
Kenjige removed Usman Khan!
Do you remember the victory that the USA cricket team achieved vs. Bangladesh in recent days?

Rizwan- was removed, Zaman- was removed, Khan- was removed and Pakistan's odds moved from the initial around 1.1 to around 1.6 after the first PowerPlay. If you are trading, you better switch to the famous Pakistan-batting-collapse mode to optimize your market positions. If you prefer Kelly Criterion - it's a bit difficult unless you have the right estimation of the Stats from the last 20 years... But nothing is guaranteed...

Shadab Khan's back-to-back sixes now open the door to an additional market, but how exactly to estimate the right probabilities with the desired accuracy at the desired Risk Ratio?
By the way, the Pakistani team made some hidden changes in the on-the-pitch-behavior last minute...

Very close to some VIP games' average 1st part Totals at that pitch, so the re-calculation of Steven Taylor - Andries Gous's batting partnership is required before the start of the second part today.
Additionally, the Pakistani fast Bowlers' countermeasures would be XX1 to XX2, if the observations of that team are trustful.

Dots balls battle by Mohammad Amir/Naseem Shah vs Creeping Evens Odds at ML market battle was suddenly cut short by Steven Taylor's Out.
The emerging reserve batting Matrix takes effect much sooner than expected.

By the way, the cooperative Pakistani Bowling effort is partially in effect now in order to restrict the US target of 160...

The additional estimation and further re-balance of the very fresh Stats is required taking in mind the Creeping Evens Odds now - I mean the USA's 44 for 1 (Powerplay 2) vs Pakistan's 30 for 3 (PowerPlay 1).
What a game...

I think right now we're witnessing the most decisive moment today according to the pre-match analysis - the Fast Bowler Haris Rauf vs Andries Gous.
The Joy of Cricket at its purest.
AG - circa 159 S/R;
HR - circa 8.00E/R.

Addendum: Also Shadab Khan is helping the Bowling attack vs Gous, but Washington vs San Francisco is one thing, and the USA vs Pakistan is another. Fielding teammates are quite different.

The partial reversal is back in effect.
Thus, the waves in the markets are working quite well (US 1.14 to 1.8 to 1.4), but Dead Overs are at a dangerous stage and Creeping Evens are over the horizon again.
While Gous' OUT by Rauf is predictable from the primary matrix, the market trailing stops of the last few Overs of Pakistan Bowling are classified as too risky. The US required 21 off 12 and 7 in hand...

Again, the Dead Bowling is quite dangerous if you have no background.
Those last Dot balls by Amir & Afridi should be studied at the academic level...

Right now before the Super Over, the huge errors in terms of the implied probabilities were offered in the markets.