Minimum Matches To Win In IPL To Enter Semi-Finals

In IPL (till 2010), there are 8 teams. Each team plays with all other teams twice. The top 4 teams would go to semi-finals. If two teams get equal no.of points, then the one which has higher Net Run Rate would get better rank.

How many minimum no.of matches should a team win to enter semi-finals in the best case as well as worst case? Assume that, in all the matches, one team would win, and there is no case of draw/tie/cancellation.

Each team plays 14 matches. Generally, people tend to think that, if any team wins one more match than the half, then it would surely go to semi-finals. i.e., if a team wins 8 matches then it would enter semi-finals. But, that is not the case.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	X	W	W	W	W	W	L	L
2	L	X	W	W	W	W	W	L
3	L	L	X	W	W	W	W	W
4	L	L	L	X	W	L	L	L
5	L	L	L	L	X	W	L	L
6	L	L	L	W	L	X	L	L
7	W	L	L	W	W	W	X	W
8	W	W	L	W	W	W	L	X

[In the above table, for any cell, if there is a W/L, it means, the team in that row won/lost against the team in that column.]

In the above case, teams 1,2,3,7 and 8 won 5 games each. Since, each team plays with all other teams twice. In the second round also, if they win exactly like this, and there will be five teams with 10 wins each. So, even if a team wins 10 games, it is not guaranteed that it would reach semi-finals.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	X	W	W	W	W	W	W	W
2	L	X	W	W	W	W	W	W
3	L	L	X	W	W	W	W	W
4	L	L	L	X	W	W	L	L
5	L	L	L	L	X	W	W	L
6	L	L	L	L	L	X	W	W
7	L	L	L	W	L	L	X	W
8	L	L	L	W	W	L	L	X

In the above table, 1, 2 and 3 reach semi-finals. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 have won 2 matches each. If the same is repeated in the second round also, then one of 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 would reach semi-finals with just 4 wins.