CRICCLASH

How CricClash rates BAT, POW, and BWL

Every name you draft is a season card. Virat Kohli in the catalog is not one immortal Kohli; he is Kohli in a specific IPL year, with batting, power, and bowling numbers graded on that year only. The live IPL catalog is forty franchise seasons, fifteen players each — six hundred cards — with the same three-axis scheme the ODI squads use. Easy difficulty shows BAT · POW · BWL while you pick. Hard hides them. Neither toggle changes the grades; they only change whether you can read them. The match engine then uses those numbers, the venue, and a seed. This page is about where the numbers come from.

The grading model is written into the squads data as an anchor-season rubric. Headline grades are tied to verified season stats. Depth players (the last few names on a fifteen-person squad) carry slightly more approximation. Non-bowlers sit on a low bowling band. Part-timers sit in the middle. Genuine new-ball or death bowlers sit much higher. All-rounders are flagged separately so the bowling-attack check on How to Play can count them.

The three axes

BAT is batting skill for that season: runs, average, consistency, and role. It is the backbone of a long innings — occupying the crease, converting starts, not only clearing the rope. A high BAT with modest POW tends to grind. That is the Chepauk / Ekana / Green Park skill more often than it is the Holkar skill.

POW is power: six rate, boundary percentage, and strike-rate ceiling. A high POW with modest BAT tends to score in bursts or get out swinging. Venue guides that say “dead-flat batting track” are asking for this axis. POW is not a synonym for finishing; plenty of openers in the catalog are power cards (Gayle 2011 is the ceiling example below).

BWL is bowling quality: wickets, economy, and phase threat. Specialist bowlers live at the top of the scale. Genuine all-rounders sit high enough that they count toward the attack. Part-timers occupy a middle band. Non-bowlers are parked on a low band so the draft UI can still show a number without pretending a keeper bowls. IPL cards also carry a pace or spin bowling tag used by the T20 engine; that tag is not a fourth grade, it is a craft label so Chepauk can actually reward spin and Green Park can actually reward pace. How those venues apply the tag is in the venue guide.

Anchor seasons (batting)

The batting scale is capped in the mid-90s, matching the ODI convention. The ceiling on the IPL file is Kohli for Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2016: 973 runs at an average of 81, graded BAT 96. That is the “this is as good as a batting season gets in this game” peg. Everything else is placed relative to it.

One step down the documented anchors: Warner 2016 (848 runs, BAT 90), Williamson 2018 (735 runs, BAT 90), AB de Villiers 2016 (687 runs, BAT 90). Those three seasons are not equal in raw runs, and the rubric does not pretend they are. Warner’s orange-cap volume, Williamson’s 735 at a high average as captain, and ABD’s 687 at average 52 with a power grade of 94 are three different shapes that still sit on the same BAT 90 peg because they were elite batting years, not because the game averages career records.

Further down the written ladder: Uthappa 2014 at BAT 86 on 660 runs (orange cap, and a keeper, which matters for slotting). Hussey 2013 at BAT 88 on 732 runs. Rohit’s peak is documented around BAT 82. Then the scale steps through “strong but not orange-cap” years: Gill 2022 is the explicit mid example — 483 runs, average 34.5, strike-rate 132.3, graded BAT 79. The rubric’s next notes are about 380-run seasons around the mid-70s, 280-run seasons around the high-60s, and a lower band in the 50s–60s for bits-and-pieces batting.

That Gill 2022 versus Kohli 2016 pairing is the cleanest answer to “why doesn’t a decent 480-run year grade like a 973-run year?” Because the method is season-contextual and anchored. 483 runs at a middling average is a useful opener season. 973 at 81 is the ceiling. The game will not collapse them toward a career mean. If you draft Gill, look at which year is on the wheel. His 2023 card in the same catalog is a different grade: 890 runs, strike-rate 157.8, orange cap, BAT 92. Same person, not the same card. That is the entire point of the catalog.

Anchor seasons (power)

The power ceiling in the rubric is Gayle 2011 and Russell 2019 at POW 96. Gayle’s 2011 RCB card is in the forty-team file: 608 runs at strike-rate 183, player of the series, BAT 88 and POW 96, with a little spin bowling on the side. That is an opener who is also the power peg. Russell 2019 is cited as a ceiling in the same sentence; the live forty-team set does not include a 2019 KKR squad, so you will not draft that exact card. The closest Russell in the file is KKR 2024 at POW 94 (BAT 56, genuine all-rounder, pace). The grading note is still useful: 96 is “this is as explosive as the scale goes,” and 94 is already a destroyer.

Next anchors: Maxwell 2014 at POW 94 on 552 runs at strike-rate 187.75 (the Kings XI card is in the file, BAT 82). ABD 2016 is POW 94 as well as BAT 90 — that dual peg is why he appears in both batting and power conversations. Miller and Pollard peaks are noted around POW 90. Pollard’s 2019 MI card in the catalog is POW 90. Then the rubric steps through “strong hitter” in the mid-80s, “top-order tempo” in the low-70s, and limited power below 60. A keeper with BAT 80 and POW 84 (Dhoni’s recurring CSK finishing shape) is a different tool from Gayle’s 96: you are buying the end of an innings, not the first six overs.

Anchor seasons (bowling)

The bowling ceiling in the written rubric is Bumrah’s peak at BWL 95. In the forty-team file, Bumrah’s highest card is Mumbai Indians 2020: 27 wickets, BWL 90, pace. The 95 is the methodological ceiling; 90 is the best Bumrah season the current catalog actually ships. Rashid Khan 2022 (Gujarat Titans) is the documented spin peg at BWL 93 on 19 wickets at economy 6.6 — that card is in the file. Narine 2012 is BWL 92 on 24 wickets and player of the tournament. Malinga and RP Singh peaks are noted at BWL 90; RP Singh’s Deccan Chargers 2009 purple-cap year (26 wickets) is in the file at 90, and Malinga’s 2013 and 2015 MI cards sit at 90 as well.

Further down: Bhuvneshwar’s 2016/18 seasons are a written 88; the catalog also has his 2017 Sunrisers purple-cap year (26 wickets, average 14.19, best 5-for-19) at BWL 90 — a reminder that the rubric is a ladder, and individual cards can land on a rung because of that season’s wickets and economy, not because the name is forever 88. “Very good” lives around the low-80s, “express but not peak” in the high-70s, support bowlers in the low-to-mid-70s, part-timers in the high-50s to high-60s, and non-bowlers on 6–12 so the attack checker can ignore them.

Bowling grades do not secretly include batting. Narine 2012 is BWL 92 and BAT 30 — a specialist. Narine 2024 in the same catalog is a different card: 488 runs as a top-order offspinner, BAT 74, POW 88, BWL 82. Drafting “Narine” without reading the year is how you think you took a death-overs mystery spinner and actually took an opener.

What the numbers are not

They are not ICC rankings, not fantasy points, and not a hidden fourth stat. They are not adjusted live as a player scores in your match — the sim uses the pre-set grades plus the pitch. They are not career averages: Dhoni’s CSK 2019 card (416 runs, average 83.20, strike-rate 134.62, BAT 82, POW 82) is a better batting season in this file than his 2023 cameo role (BAT 64, POW 76). They do not override slot ranges. A BAT 96 Kohli still has to sit inside [2, 3] on that 2016 card. They do not override the overseas cap.

Easy / Hard only toggles visibility. Casual / Balanced / Ruthless only changes how the computer ranks legal names and how it elects; it does not restat Kohli. Auction Trilogy buckets the same three numbers into Elite / Good / Decent / Weak lots — see the auction guide. If you want a worked XI that uses these grades under real constraints, that is the all-time IPL XI.

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