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Rohit scored his third ODI double century, settled down most comfortably as India's stop-gap captain, and was India's most valuable player by a long mile.
Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji list the most valuable players in the Sri Lanka ODI series.
Everything went right for Rohit Sharma after the early hiccup at Dharamsala.
He scored his third ODI double century, settled down most comfortably as India's stop-gap captain, and was India's most valuable player by a long mile in the home ODI series against Sri Lanka.
This is indeed a very good India ODI team, and, in Indian conditions, it is practically unbeatable.
How else does one explain why this team didn't even miss Virat Kohli, the finest ODI batsman of this generation?
Shreyas Iyer looked promising, Shikhar Dhawan found things ridiculously simple, and India had too many good bowlers with not enough wickets to get!
The Sri Lankan trio of Angelo Mathews, Suranga Lakmal and Upul Tharanga carved out one surprise win, but then ran out of fire. India, on the other hand, had far too much ammunition.
Then there was Hardik Pandya always lurking and always doing something significant (more with the balls these days), and there was M S Dhoni who batted with grit, stumped with aplomb, and often proved to be the captain behind the captain.
Table 1 lists the most valuable players of the series.
Recall that the Most Valuable Player Index (MVPI) picks out batsmen who score a lot of runs at a high strike rate, bowlers who take a lot of wickets at a low economy rate, and fielders who take the most catches or participate in run outs.
MVPI expresses a player's overall batting + bowling + fielding performance in terms of a 'run equivalent'.
Table 1: Most Valuable Players in the India-Sri Lanka series
| Rank | Player | Runs | Top Score | 4s | 6s | Strike Rate | Wickets | Economy | Matches | MVPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rohit Sharma | 217 | 208 | 13 | 13 | 120.6 | 0 | - | 3 | 294 |
| 2 | Shikhar Dhawan | 168 | 100 | 22 | 2 | 106.3 | 0 | - | 3 | 219 |
| 3 | Shreyas Iyer | 162 | 88 | 18 | 3 | 101.3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 199 |
| 4 | Angelo Mathews | 153 | 111 | 16 | 3 | 75.7 | 1 | 3.9 | 3 | 186 |
| 5 | Upul Tharanga | 151 | 95 | 23 | 3 | 106.3 | 0 | - | 3 | 184 |
| 6 | Yujvendra Chahal | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 5.3 | 3 | 142 |
| 7 | Hardik Pandya | 18 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 120 | 4 | 5.1 | 3 | 122 |
| 8 | Suranga Lakmal | 12 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 50 | 4 | 4.5 | 3 | 120 |
| 9 | Kuldeep Yadav | 19 | 19 | 4 | 0 | 76 | 3 | 4.2 | 2 | 100 |
| 10 | Jasprit Bumrah | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4.6 | 3 | 99 |
| 11 | M S Dhoni | 72 | 65 | 10 | 3 | 78.3 | 0 | - | 3 | 97 |
| 12 | Thisara Perera | 11 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 122.2 | 5 | 7.7 | 3 | 92 |
| 13 | Niroshan Dickwella | 56 | 26 | 11 | 0 | 116.7 | 0 | - | 3 | 87 |
| 14 | Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4.8 | 3 | 76 |
| 15 | Akila Dananjaya | 12 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 57.1 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 56 |
| 16 | S Samarawickrama | 42 | 42 | 5 | 0 | 73.7 | 0 | - | 1 | 37 |
| 17 | Sachith Pathirana | 9 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 45 | 2 | 6.6 | 3 | 24 |
| 18 | D Gunathilaka | 30 | 16 | 3 | 0 | 71.4 | 0 | 12 | 3 | 23 |
| 19 | Asela Gunaratne | 51 | 34 | 5 | 0 | 63 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 20 |
| 20 | Lahiru Thirimanne | 21 | 21 | 1 | 0 | 55.3 | 0 | - | 2 | 20 |
| 21 | Dinesh Karthik | 26 | 26 | 3 | 0 | 53.1 | 0 | - | 3 | 16 |
| 22 | Washington Sundar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 1 | 6.5 | 1 | 15 |
| 23 | Nuwan Pradeep | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6.7 | 3 | 3 |
| 24 | Manish Pandey | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 13.3 | 0 | - | 3 | -9 |
*Run outs are counted as 1 (wicket) for a direct hit, and 0.5 (wicket) if the fielder is an equal participant in a run out dismissal.