Methodology
How we rate a player-season.
Every player-season in the game is rated by hand against the public record. Here is the thinking behind it — no scraped numbers, no black box.
What we rate
The unit of the game is not a player — it is a player in a single season. Every year a batter or bowler played across two decades of Indian T20 history (2008–2026) is its own draftable card. A star’s record-breaking year and their quiet rebuilding year are different picks, priced differently, because on the field they were different players.
The source
Ratings start from the public record — the runs, wickets, strike rates and economy rates anyone can look up. Each season was read and rated by hand against that record, one at a time, rather than generated in bulk. The real stat lines and the in-game salary you see on every card are the same figures the game is built on; nothing on the card is invented.
Rating and the cap
A rating reflects a season’s form and impact in the context of its own year, and it translates into a salary-cap cost. That cost is the whole game: a legal XI has to fit under the budget, so every marquee name you add is a name you can no longer afford somewhere else. We publish the rating order — who ranks above whom — inside the game and across the blog. We deliberately keep the internal scoring math private, so that the challenge of finding a strong, legal, affordable XI stays a genuine puzzle rather than a lookup.
Why it’s deterministic
The match simulation is deterministic: the same XI always plays out the same season. That is a deliberate design choice. A result is meant to be a claim you can defend and an argument you can settle with a friend — not a coin flip you re-roll until it lands. Two people who draft the same side get the same story, which is what makes comparing squads worth doing.
Corrections
The public record gets revised, and hand-rating two decades of cricket means we will get a call wrong here and there. If you think a season is mis-rated, tell us — every message reaches Rohit directly at play16zero@gmail.com. More about who builds this is on the about page.