Can Pardeep Narwal, Siddharth Desai, Nitin Tomar and Pawan Sehrawat join Naveen Kumar in the playoffs

Dabang Delhi sitting pretty at 49 points

• Just needs 3 wins in 11 matches to make it to playoffs

• If Delhi play like Patna or Telugu of 1st half, they will be good!

Haryana, Jaipur, Bengal need to win half their matches

• 4 — 5 wins and 1–2 ties to make it to 62–63 points

• Need to continue their momentum from first half of PKL7
• Likely to end up with 67–72 points

Bengaluru Bulls needs at least 5 wins in the next 11

• Next leg being Bengaluru leg will decide their fate
• Need 30 points more to have 70% chance of making it to playoffs

Teams with 61–62 points likely to make it to playoffs 

U Mumba & UP Yoddhas need 34–36 points

• Need 6–7 wins and no big defeats

• Race for the 6th spot is strong between these 2 teams

Gujarat, Pune, Tamil, Telugu need to shift gears

• Need 38 points more to stand a chance

• Means 6–7 wins in 11 matches and no big defeats
• These teams need to perform like Bengal Warriors of 1st half of season

Finally there is 3 times champions Patna Pirates. Need 44 points to stand a chance of playing playoffs. 8 wins in 11 matches and no big defeats 

Is that clear, Pardeep Narwal?


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Science behind the numbers

Every game can have one of 5 results, Either team can win by a margin of 8 or more - there were 27 such results in first half, OR Either team can win by a margin of 7 or lesser points difference - there were 34 such results in first half and there can be a tie - and 5 such results in the first half.  So as you can imagine there can be all 5 results possible for each of the remaining 66 games. How do you view this scenaro as a team looking to qualify and as a fan wanting your team to qualify. Great news all 12 teams are still very much in the qualification race. 

So how did we solve such a complicated problem.

We used advanced analytics techniques - simulations. We ran 50,000 simulations of possible results for each game, and put together the results of what scenarios will support qualification for each team. We ran this pre-season and now at the midway point to see how the options change as the season progresses.

How to read the histogram. 
Looking at the histogram for the 6th place (red histogram) - If any team gets 60 points, then they will have a less than 15% (8% + 4% + 2% + 1% + miniscule numbers) chance of qualifying

Team scoring 62–63 is very likely (>75% chance) to be 6th and squeeze through to playoffs; team manages to score 65 points it is likely to be in the 5th place. And team notching 60–61 points is likely to be disappointed (<20% chance to qualify). Just a couple of points will decide if a team makes it to the playoffs or not. Teams which have lost matches badly and not taken back a single point are likely to feel the pain at the end of the season. This is what the scenario would have looked like before the tournament had started.
The last team to qualify would have needed to target 12 wins, 5 close defeats (17 good games out of 22) , or 11 wins, 2 ties, 4 close defeats (18 good games out of 22). Now Patna Pirates are at just 19 points, so you would believe they will need to score ~43–45 points in 11 matches. That means getting 8–9 wins in 11 matches. Possible? Only if they clone Pardeep Narwal!

But given the way PKL7 has shaped up, these probabilities change ….

For a team to come 6th in the tournament from here onwards, they can have >85% chance of qualifying if they earn just 64 points. So there have been a bunch of counter intuitive results, isn't that the beauty of sport!
 

Teams like Gujarat who had a horror run — 7 defeats in 8 games, 6 in a row — should feel like a reset button is all they need to qualify from here on. Specifically what will Pardeep need to deliver for the pirates to qualify. Patna needs to score only 41 more points, which translates to 7 wins, 1 tie, 3 close defeats and 1 major defeat. Pardeep Narwal, can you turn on the magic like in the second half of the match against Dabang Delhi?