IPL MVP Rankings: Kohli maintains healthy lead over Warner

Although Virat Kohli has scored 83 more runs, David Warner's strike rate of 164.2 is better than the Indian batsman's strike rate of 144.7, and puts both batsmen almost at par.

Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji analyse IPL performances in Rediff.com's Most Valuable Players ratings.

Virat Kohli continues to score loads of runs and has even bettered his strike rate by 10.

Royal Challengers Bangalore's captain scored his second century of the season to complete 500 runs in IPL 2016.

With this ton, he became the first captain to score two hundreds in a season.

With a MVPI of 634 he continues to top the MVPI charts.

The MVPI collapses a player's batting + bowling + fielding performance into a 'run equivalent'.

Although Kohli has scored 83 more runs, David Warner's strike rate of 164.2 is better than the Indian batsman's strike rate of 144.7, and puts both batsmen almost at par.

This week we try to spot the IPL’s best bargains, and worst bets, based on the Paisa Vasool Index (PVI). It shouldn’t surprise that Indian players (especially top Indian players) have a high PVI. They are far more expensive than their international counterparts.

Any international player in the regular playing eleven with a PVI of $1000 or less is an outstanding buy.

Mitchell McClenaghan, Andre Russell, Aaron Finch, Thisara Perera, Mustafizur Rahman, Quinton deKock and David Warner are in this list (check for others in the table, especially players having played 7 or more matches).

Indian players with a PVI of $2000 must also be considered to be outstanding value of money: Virat Kohli, Robin Uthappa, Dinesh Karthik, Yusuf Pathan, Axar Patel, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar etc.

International players with PVI greater than 4000 and India players with PVI greater than 5000 are probably under-performing: Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, David Miller, James Faulkner and even Ravindra Jadeja.

Since the IPL teams require at least seven players in the playing eleven, Indian players -- and especially India's top players -- always enjoy this advantage.

Players who score a lot of runs at high strike rates, take a lot of wickets at a low economy rate and also take catches or participate in run-outs have the highest MVPI.

The table below indicates the MVPI and PVI for the top 100 players in IPL 9.

The data has been updated after the 38th match of IPL 9, between Gujarat Lions and Kolkata Knight Riders on May 8, 2016.

• Coverage: IPL 9