By Duy Huynh 
Woke up this morning thinking about the Celebrity Cricket League standings, you know? Saw those points tables floating around online but honestly, couldn’t make heads or tails of how teams actually get ranked. Felt like staring at hieroglyphs. Decided right then to figure this points system out once and for all.
Getting Started Was Rough
First thing I did? Tried reading the official rules. Big mistake. Felt like wading through mud. Words like “net run rate” and “bonus points” just swam in front of my eyes. Found myself comparing it to baseball, which I sorta know, but that just confused me even more. Cricket’s got its own weird rhythm.
Scrapped the rulebook idea. Instead, hunted down this season’s match results. Just raw scores, win-loss stuff. Started tracking it all on a messy piece of paper on my kitchen table. Coffee stain included, free of charge. Scribbled down points for each win, loss, and whatever a “tie” means here.
The Spreadsheet Struggle
Paper got too messy real quick. Moved to a spreadsheet – figured that’d be cleaner. Made columns: Team Names, Matches Played, Wins, Losses, Ties, Points. Easy, right? Nope. Quickly hit a wall. What about “Net Run Rate”? How the heck is that calculated?
Dove back online. Found bits and pieces: it’s about how many runs a team scores per over compared to what they concede, averaged out. Sounds fancy. Means nothing to me still. Typed the formula into my spreadsheet anyway, hoping it would magically work. Messed things up three times before getting it sorta right. Felt like a victory just seeing numbers pop up.
Finally had my rough points table! Looked something like this:
- Win: 2 points (obvious)
- Tie/No Result: 1 point each (fair enough)
- Loss: 0 points (ouch)
- Net Run Rate (NRR): That weird math thing deciding ties (still confused, but using it).
The Big Realization
After all that headache, playing with numbers for hours, the main thing clicked: consistency wins. A team might smash someone one day, get a huge NRR boost, but lose the next day and gain nothing. Points slowly rack up for teams that keep winning, even if it’s not flashy.
NRR? It’s basically the tie-breaker king. If two teams are neck-and-neck on points, whoever played more aggressively overall (higher NRR) gets the higher spot. Crucial for rankings. Makes sense why teams sometimes push hard for extra runs even when they’ve clearly won.
Put my homemade points table side-by-side with the official one online. Almost matched! Couple small differences – probably messed up the NRR somewhere – but the order was basically right. Felt stupidly proud of that messy spreadsheet.
Bottom line? The system makes you appreciate the grind. Winning matters most, sure, but that NRR number? It tells the story of how you played every single ball. Still get confused sometimes, but at least now I know why my favorite team is stuck in 4th place. They just gotta win more, plain and simple. Sticking with my spreadsheet for next week’s games – stains and all.
yadanarbon 