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The league stage of the inaugural IPL is now over and an analysis of player performance thus far has rather aptly produced a photo-finish at the top of the Times Most Valuable Player Index.

Shane Watson, who has been dominating the charts for some time now, remains on top, but just one point ahead of a late-charging Sanath Jayasuriya. Unfortunately for Jayasuriya, as for his team, it’s a case of almost there but not quite and with no hope of catching up.

The most successful, and many would say the most astute, leader of the IPL, Shane Warne is at No. 3 followed by the skippers of two other semi-finalists, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh with Shaun Marsh – arguably the find of the IPL – completing the top five. Indian T20 captain M S Dhoni has dropped out of the top 10, but remains within striking distance at No. 11.

In the company of Jayasuriya as men who played their hearts out for their sides but will no longer be seen competing in this IPL are Rohit Sharma, Shaun Pollock, Sourav Ganguly, Dwayne Bravo and Adam Gilchrist, the only ones in the top 20 who do not belong to the teams in the semis. That means 14 of the top 20 are from the top four teams, which is not very surprising.

The three men to have scored over 500 runs in IPL are among the top five batsmen with Jayasuriya heading the list thanks to his strike rate of over 166. Orange-capped Shaun Marsh is next on the list, but Sehwag’s strike rate of almost 187 gives him third spot ahead of his more prolific opening partner Gautam Gambhir. Yusuf Pathan rounds off the top five though he has scored only 334 runs, again thanks to his high strike rate.

Among the bowlers, Sohail Tanvir is a clear winner. Not only has he taken more wickets than anybody, he is also one of only three bowlers in the tournament who have conceded less than a run a ball. The other two – Dilshan of Delhi and Thornely of Mumbai – have between them bowled just eight overs.

Sreesanth grabs second spot despite a fairly high economy rate thanks to his 19 wickets. Warne, Irfan Pathan and Piyush Chawla round off the top five. What is noticeable here that the five are from just two teams, Mohali and Jaipur. Is that why the bookies are favouring those two teams at a venue which hasn’t really seen tall scores being put up?

How do players fare on a points-per-match basis? The list tells you how much Chennai has missed Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey, how different things could have been for Kolkata if Brendon McCullum had been around, and that Ross Taylor and Dwayne Bravo could have made a real impact. It also suggests that Delhi erred in playing Farveez Maharoof for just 9 of 14 matches and that Kolkata too may have got its composition wrong when it made Umar Gul sit out a couple of games.

The value-for-money list remains one that is strikingly devoid of stars – foreign or Indian. Shaun Marsh has strengthened his lead and is now almost two-and-a-half times as much value for money as any of the 160-odd players who have performed in the 56 matches to date.

Dwayne Bravo’s replacement and namesake in the Mumbai team, Dwayne Smith, has proved to be another value buy, though he’s contributed more with ball than bat. Following him are L Balaji, Sohail Tanvir, Ashish Nehra and Manpreet Gony in that order. What is noticeable here is that barring Marsh, the top of the list consists of people who have contributed mainly or almost entirely with the ball rather than with the bat.

Source:Cricket News

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