The Hundred, IPL, BBL, CPL, ILT20, PSL, SA20 – which franchise league is most entertaining?

One of the things we looked at is the quality of player in each league, based on international caps across all formats.

We looked at the average number of international caps held by the starting XIs in each game and here is where the ILT20 comes out on top (423), followed by the PSL (351) and the IPL (335).

There is a huge disparity here between the top of the pile and the bottom, with the Big Bash average of just 145 almost 300 caps short of the ILT20.

This could be attributed to the fact Australia’s best cricketers are playing an international summer at the same time as the Big Bash is being contested, whereas in India, for example, the whole cricketing world stops for the IPL window.

Another factor is that the ILT20 allows up to nine overseas players per team, compared to the three or four spaces given up for players from abroad in other competitions.

The ILT20 manages to attract so many players from overseas because of the money on offer – only the IPL pays its players more, with one report in Forbes suggesting teams in the UAE have a salary cap of more than £2m for a month-long competition, compared to the £1.5m offered by the Big Bash for a competition that runs for almost twice as long.

One of the sticks used to beat certain leagues is how long they take to complete. How often have you heard a commentator say that IPL matches last four hours now?

Well, in the latest iteration of each competition, it’s actually the CPL – the league where spin is king – which takes the longest on average, with matches lasting just six minutes short of that four-hour figure.

The IPL is second on the list (three hours 44 minutes) with the Big Bash the most economical of the T20 leagues in terms of time (three hours 10 minutes).

The average men’s Hundred game – which is 40 balls shorter, don’t forget – lasted two hours 42 minutes.