IPL Boundary Blackjack, a new contest on Sportsblock, is now live!
Entry is free with a 5000 MEDAL prize pool for the top teams in each round!
To join just follow the link below and sign-in with your usual Hive credentials.
https://sportsblock.app/contests/ipl-boundary-blackjack/ipl-bb-2026-r1
Below, I'll explain the simple rules of playing IPL Boundary Blackjack and then provide you with a guide to all the IPL venues that'll help you make an educated prediction in each match.
How do I play IPL Boundary Blackback?
It's really simple!
All you have to do is guess how many 'boundaries' will be scored in that match?
What's a boundary you say? In cricket, a boundary is a hit by a batter that either reaches or clears the edge of the playing area (commonly known as the boundary).
If the ball makes contact with the ground before reaching the boundary the batter scores 4 runs.
If ball clears the boundary on the full then the batter scores 6 runs.
So in this game, you're going to be guessing the number of boundaries (4s + 6s) scored in an IPL match by both teams.
How do I score points in IPL Boundary Blackjack?
If your guess of the number of boundaries scored in a match is equal to or less than the actual number scored then you score that number of points.
However, if your guess is more than the number of actual boundaries scored in the match then you go 'bust' and score zero points.
So the aim of the game is to guess high but not so high that you end up scoring zero.
Here's an example
Player 1 guesses there will be 45 boundaries hit in match 1.
Player 2 guesses there will be 50 boundaries hit in match 1.
There are 47 boundaries hit in match 1
Player 1 scores 45 points
Player 2 scores 0 points
Round 1 includes 7 matches, so the point scoring will continue during that period.
The 3 players with the most points after 7 matches get a share of the 5000 MEDAL prize pool (2500/1500/1000).
Deadlines for joining and making predictions
Round 1 is live now! The first match of IPL 2026 is this Saturday (28 March).
The deadline for making your predictions for an individual match in that round is the official start time of the match (most midweek games in the IPL start at 3pm BST with some weekend matches starting earlier).
The good news is, you are also free to change your prediction as often as you like up until the start of the match.
With IPL matches coming thick and fast (there is 1 every day during the week and usually double headers at the weekend) then a good tactic would be to get your prediction in early and then amend it closer to the start!
But tales, I know jack shit about cricket
The good news is you don't need to!
Just like the card game blackjack, a lot of it is to do with luck so provided you're making sensible guesses, you've got a chance.
In terms of making sensible guess, I'll be helping you with daily match previews and stats as well as guides like the one below, to help you set your first guesses for round 1.
What's the average number of boundaries hit at each IPL venue?
In cricket, conditions are king!
No 2 stadiums and no 2 pitches within those stadiums are ever the same.
As a result, the game of cricket that you watched yesterday, can feel like a very different sport than the one you are watching today.
Without going into great detail, pitch conditions are determined by how flat the surface is, how dry the surface is, how much grass covering it has, whether that grass is live or not, what the soil used is, etc, etc, etc.
All these variables combine to make certain conditions more favorable for batting and others more favorable for bowling.
Within the context of IPL Boundary Blackjack that's important because the pitch is going to be a big factor in how many boundaries are likely to be scored!
The other thing to consider is the stadium itself. How big are the boundaries? Is the pitch being used in the middle of the ground or is it shorter to one side or shorter straight? Is the stadium at sea-level or at altitude?
All these things combine to mean that a hit at one stadium might travel 70m and disappear into the crowd while the same shot at a different stadium might be caught 10m from the boundary.
To fully understand this you're going to need to have watched a lot of cricket and/or having a working knowledge of agriculture, geography and physics.
Luckily, I have a very large database of cricket stats (yes, I am that geeky) so instead of enrolling on several degree courses, you can use my stats below to guide you.
All my stats are based on the last 10 IPL matches to be played at each venue.
Why just 10? Well because cricket always has been and always will be a sport that changes and evolves very quickly meaning that any stats from 5 - 10 years ago are probably not going to help you today.
To put that into context, you can see that the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi has the highest number of boundaries per match in recent times (56.8 per match) but historically that average for all games played their in the IPL drops to just 41.9!
We won't really know whether pitch curators in Delhi (and everywhere else in India) are going to serve up the kind of conditions that have made batting very easy in recent years until the tournament starts. However, I'd guess that you'll want to make predictions closer to the averages stated above than the historical stats which are far lower.
Feast and famine - The most vs the least boundaries in IPL matches
Again, looking at those stats from the last 10 games at each venue, here's where we've seen some absolute monster scores vs those games where runs and boundaries have been harder to come by.
The highest number of boundaries scored in an IPL match
2 matches within our data set (last 10 IPL games at each stadium) hold the record for the most boundaries in an IPL match with 81!
SRH v RR, match 2, 2025 - 81 boundaries
Coming so early in the tournament (just the 2nd game last year) this match really set the tone for what was some spectacular hitting throughout IPL 2025.
https://www.iplt20.com/video/58864/ipl-2025-m02-srh-vs-rr---match-highlights
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) possessed the destructive opening pair of Abhishek Sharma who would go one to be ranked number 1 T20 batsman by the close of the year and Travis Head, arguably the most aggressive multi-format batsman in world cricket. The supporting act of Ishan Kishan, recent WC winner with India and Heinrich Klassen, one of the most sort after hitters on the T20 franchise circuit, made them a formidable batting line-up.
Here's your first lesson on pitch conditions too.
The pitch in this match is what is commonly referred to as 'a road'. In other words, it's flat, it's hard and it's got no grass covering. This means the ball comes off it at a nice even pace with no deviation. Batsmen can trust that the line the ball is on when it leaves the bowlers hand, is going to be the line the ball continues on when it reaches them allowing them to swing early and swing hard.
With the power of modern batsmen, when the ball hits anywhere near the middle of the bat then it's very likely to disappear to or over the boundary, as the highlights above show.
RCB v SRH, match 30, 2024 - 81 boundaries
Those of you with a keen eye will see the immediate relevance of this game - itʼs the exact same fixture as the match 1, round 1 of IPL Boundary Blackjack!
https://www.iplt20.com/video/54303/m30-rcb-vs-srh--match-highlights
Again it features that strong SRH batting line-up who have taken hitting to the next level over the last couple of years and this year, theyʼll be opening the tournament versus the reigning champions in RCB.
The venue the MA Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru (Bangalore) has always been a high-scoring venue. While the stats above show it hovering at an average of 50 boundaries a match, it historically has the highest average boundary count of an IPL venue (42.5) to have hosted 50+ matches.
Will we get another high scoring match to kick-off IPL 2026?
The lowest number of boundaries scored in an IPL match
During the same time period weʼve also had some very low scoring matches.
At the back end of last season, we got 2 games that were interrupted, 1 by the weather and 1 by a floodlight failure. Those games finished with 14 and 18 boundaries respectively and Iʼd imagine in IPL boundary blackjack would have seen everyone go bust.
Iʼll certainly post a weather update ahead of each match but I donʼt think anyone can predict the power going out!
Of completed games, the lowest in recent times was CSK v KKR at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai which saw just 23 boundaries.
CSK have historically thrived on slow, low wickets at home which produce few scoring opportunities. However, they struggled last season, winning just 4 matches as they finished bottom including this game in which they made just 103 from their 20 overs.
So there we go, we could have scores in completed matches ranging anywhere from about 20 to 80 boundaries with an average of 45-50 depending on conditions and the teams playing...
