Chennai's Dwayne Bravo best bet to finish MVP No 1; Kohli 6th

Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji present Rediff.com's Most Valuable Player ratings for the ongoing IPL 8

Not very long ago, Dwayne Bravo, as West Indies captain, announced his team’s decision to walk out of the India tour. At that point it wasn’t clear if we’d see Bravo play again in India because there was a fear that IPL teams may be asked to withdraw their West Indian players in retaliation.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen; indeed IPL 8 has been dominated by West Indian players: Bravo (638), Andre Russell (682), Kieron Pollard (547), Chris Gayle (500) and Lendl Simmons (457).

The numbers in brackets indicate the most valuable player index (MVPI).

MVPI collapses a player’s batting, bowling and fielding performances into a one-dimensional ‘run equivalent’, and -- although not perfect – MVPI is a very good indicator of a player’s all-round contribution to the team.

With David Warner and Andre Russell out of the IPL, they will probably surrender the top two spots in the MVPI table (it could have been so different if Warner had taken that boundary line catch!), and it looks likely that Dwayne Bravo may be this year’s MVP. He’s taking a lot of wickets (23) and, with Brendon McCullum gone, he is also likely to get more opportunities to score runs.

Of course, the peerless A B de Villiers can soar up the charts with just 15 minutes of batting! If Royal Challengers Bangalore enter the final, the South African captain could well become MVP, especially because he now bats at No 3.

There's more interesting data in the end columns of the MVPI table.

The paisa vasool – or player value – index (PVI) tells you how much the franchise pays the player (data available both in US$ and INR) for every ‘run equivalent’ that he scores.

We’ll talk here of PVI in US$ because there are fewer digits.

Any player with a PVI < 500 is a complete steal. Look at Andre Russell (147), Moise Henriques (323) or Lendl Simmons (109). They are in the top dozen of the MVPI table and cost so little!

Generally speaking, any foreign international player with a PVI below 1000, or an Indian international player with a PVI below 3000, offers excellent value. With eight IPL requiring 7 Indian players each, there’s a massive scarcity of Indian talent. That’s why franchises continue to gamble with a Yuvraj Singh (MVPI 242; PVI  11019) or a Virender Sehwag (MVPI 86, PVI 6202) … and sometimes, as with Ashish Nehra (MVPI 372, PVI 896), it pays off handsomely.

Table: Most valuable players at the 2015 IPL (as on midnight of May 19, 2015):

Also check out non-international Indian players with a PVI below 1000. If they remain disciplined and dedicated, and have a bit of luck, they could soon become very rich. They must realize that success rides on good cricket and good behavior, not just good money.

- IPL 2015: Complete Coverage