IPL: What will happen if the second Super Over also ends in a tie?

October 18, Sunday was easily the most thrilling day of cricket ever happened in the Indian Premier League (IPL) as both the matches played ended in a tie. While the Kolkata Knight Riders edged past Sunrisers Hyderabad comfortably in the Super Over, the Kings XI Punjab needed an extra Super Over to gain two points against the Mumbai Indians. Both Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami were quite impressive with their execution and conceded only five runs apiece.

Their efforts produced new history as the MI-KXIP match became the first-ever Twenty20 match to witness multiple rounds of Super Over. The rule of playing an extra Super Over in the case of the Super Over getting tied came into existence after the criticism over the boundary count rule in the 2019 World Cup final. Had Trent Boult delivered a much better over against Chris Gayle and Mayank Agarwal, we might have got another round of Super Over being tied.

No 3rd super over?
Sunday night turned out to be a crazy one after multiple Super Overs in the same match. People even found the possibilities for a 3rd Super Over between head coaches Anil Kumble and Mahela Jayawardene in case of another tie-breaker. However, the rules suggest the teams could have shared points instead of a 3rd Super Over. As per the agreement between the captains ahead of the IPL 2020, a Super Over can’t begin as late as 10:30 PM local time (12:00 AM IST) during the night matches.

Similarly, the Super over can’t begin after 6:30 PM local time (8:00 PM IST) during the afternoon games. As the thrilling matches in IPL usually take 4 hours to get completed, it is less likely that two rounds of Super Over get completed inside 30 minutes and the 3rd gets started. Hence, we might not witness a 3rd Super Over as anticipated during the MI vs KXIP match. Instead, we will see the teams taking up a point each despite spending four and half hours on the field.

How late the Sunday’s Super Overs went?
Talking about MI vs KXIP, the first round of Super Over that began at 11:29 PM IST, concluded around 11:46 PM IST. The second round was played between 11:55 PM IST and 12:12 AM IST; starting only five minutes before the cut-off time. It took almost nine minutes to begin the second Super Over after the conclusion of the first due to the confusion about the players who can play the second round. The SRH vs KKR match had a Super Over between 7:39 PM and 7:49 PM as per IST.

The initial 20 overs of SRH and KKR took nine minutes more than what the MI-KXIP game needed. If the MI and KXIP match got delayed in a similar way, we could have seen teams sharing points for the first time in IPL history for a tie. As per the previous rules of boundary count, Mumbai Indians could have edged over Kings XI Punjab after Shami’s over as the defending champions hit 24 boundaries and conceded only 22.