Aside from winning the tournament itself, the IPL also has a bonus award called the ‘IPL Fair Play Award’. Since the IPL’s inception, a certain number of points are awarded to each team on the basis of how “fairly” they play on the field. But what constitutes ‘fairness’ on the cricket pitch?

The Chennai Super Kings have won this award 6 times and fans are left wondering, why and how. What happens is that after every match, the two teams playing are given points by the umpires based on a no. of factors, each factor having certain points, and points corresponding to all factors add up to give 10. Here is the detailed split-up of the points awarded by the umpires; mentioned in the following table.

• Playing under the spirit of the game – 4 points
• Showing respect towards the opposition – 2 points
• Respecting the laws of cricket – 2 points
• Respect towards the umpires – 2 points

After the end of each match, the on-field umpires and the third umpire report their points to the match referee. The points for one team per match are obtained as an average of the points awarded by all the three umpires. At the end of the league stage, the average points for all the teams are calculated and the team with the most points is declared as the winner of IPL fair play award.

The reason why Chennai Super Kings have won it 6 times is that they have been consistently playing the game with the right spirit. They have let their game do the talking instead of showing unnecessary emotions on the field. MS Dhoni, our captain cool, doesn’t show too many emotions and remains calm and this behaviour of his serves as an example for other players and hence their team is quite good at it.