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IPL 2024: Most Valuable Performances

May 29, 2024 10:07 IST

Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji present Rediff.com's Most Valuable performances of IPL 2024

IMAGE: Sunil Narine is the first cricketer to thrice win the Most Valuable Player award in the Indian Premier League. All photographs: BCCI

Another IPL is over. With a MVPI of 1055, Sunil Narine was comfortably the most valuable player of IPL 2024.

The story of this IPL is revealed if we look at the top 20 on the MVPI table (Table 1): Eight of the top 10 have a strike rate over 150; and 13 out of the top 20 have a strike rate over 150.

The average strike rate of the top 10 is 171.1; the average strike rate of the top 20 is 163.5.

These are incredible numbers. We are seeing a paradigm shift in how T20 will be played in the future.

A corollary of such a shift is that the Orange and Purple caps are no longer the best indicators of the IPL's best batter and best bowler.

The batter's run aggregate must be coupled judiciously to the strike rate; likewise, the bowler's wicket tally must be coupled with the economy rate.

IMAGE: Sunil Narine in his debut season won his first MVP award in IPL 2012 after picking up 24 wickets. His second MVP came in the 2018 season when he scored 357 runs and picked 17 wickets.

Fortunately, the Rediff MVPI calculation already employs such a coupling.

So, using the same calculation, we can also identify IPL 2024's five most valuable batters (Table 2), and the five most valuable bowlers (Table 3).

The toppers of Tables 2 and 3, we would like to argue, are the more deserving winners of the Orange and Purple Caps respectively.

Best Performing Players in IPL 2024

RankPlayerTeamFromRunTop Score4s6sStrike RateWicketsEconomyMatchMVPIPVI(US$)
1 Sunil Narine KKR WI 488 109 50 33 182.1 17 6.7 14 1055 685
2 Virat Kohli RCB IND 741 113 62 38 154.7 0 - 15 857 2109
3 Abhishek Sharma SRH IND 484 75 36 42 204.2 2 7.3 16 703 1114
4 Travis Head SRH AUS 567 102 64 32 191.6 0 19.2 15 673 1217
5 Nicholas Pooran LSG WI 499 75 35 36 178.2 0 - 14 632 3050
6 Riyan Parag RR IND 573 84 40 33 149.2 0 9 15 612 748
7 Heinrich Klaasen SRH SA 479 80 19 38 171.1 0 - 16 607 1042
8 Sanju Samson RR IND 531 86 48 24 153.5 0 - 15 603 2797
9 Andre Russell KKR WI 222 64 20 16 185 19 10.1 14 602 2802
10 Ruturaj Gaikwad CSK IND 583 108 58 18 141.2 0 - 14 577 1253
11 KL Rahul LSG IND 520 82 45 19 136.1 0 - 14 569 3600
12 Rishabh Pant DC IND 446 88 36 25 155.4 0 - 13 567 3400
13 Tristan Stubbs DC SA 378 71 24 26 190.9 3 7.5 14 567 106
14 Philip Salt KKR ENG 435 89 50 24 165.4 0 - 12 566 319
15 Axar Patel DC IND 235 66 19 10 131.3 11 7.7 14 537 2692
16 Faf du Plessis RCB SA 438 64 47 21 161.6 0 - 15 518 1628
17 B Sai Sudarshan GT IND 527 103 48 16 141.3 0 - 12 504 48
18 Jasprit Bumrah MI IND 12 8 1 0 100 20 6.5 13 503 2874
19 J Fraser-McGurk DC AUS 330 84 32 28 234 0 - 9 497 121
20 Pat Cummins SRH AUS 136 35 9 8 143.2 18 9.3 16 497 4970
21 Sam Curran PBKS ENG 270 63 24 6 123.3 16 10.1 13 495 4503
22 Cameron Green RCB AUS 255 46 22 10 143.3 10 8.6 13 494 4268
23 Marcus Stoinis LSG AUS 388 124 39 16 147.5 4 9 14 487 2721
24 Ravindra Jadeja CSK AUS 267 57 22 8 142 8 7.9 14 486 3966
25 Tilak Varma MI IND 416 65 35 19 149.6 0 12 13 485 422
26 Harshal Patel PBKS IND 13 12 1 1 68.4 24 9.7 14 478 2962
27 Yashasvi Jaiswal RR IND 435 104 54 16 155.9 0 - 15 476 1012
28 Rajat Patidar RCB IND 395 55 21 33 177.1 0 - 15 474 51
29 Shashank Singh PBKS IND 354 68 28 21 164.7 1 5 14 468 51
30 Shivam Dube CSK IND 396 66 28 28 162.3 1 14 14 451 1069
31 Varun Chakravarthy KKR IND 0 0 0 0 - 21 8 14 450 3213
32 Dinesh Karthik RCB IND 326 83 27 22 187.4 0 - 15 439 1509
33 Rohit Sharma MI IND 417 105 45 23 150 0 - 14 435 4432
34 Shubman Gill GT IND 426 104 37 15 147.4 0 - 12 425 1984
35 Shreyas Iyer KKR IND 351 58 34 14 146.9 0 - 14 413 3574
36 Suryakumar Yadav MI IND 345 102 36 18 167.5 0 - 11 405 2380
37 Ishan Kishan MI IND 320 69 35 16 148.8 0 - 14 399 4605
38 Venkatesh Iyer KKR IND 370 70 35 19 152.3 0 28 14 381 2530
39 Hardik Pandya MI IND 216 46 17 11 143 11 10.8 14 374 4832
40 Abishek Porel DC IND 327 65 36 13 159.5 0 - 14 368 65
41 Harshit Rana KKR IND 0 0 0 0 - 19 9.1 12 363 664
42 Jos Buttler RR ENG 359 107 36 12 140.8 0 - 11 363 3319
43 Jonny Bairstow PBKS ENG 298 108 33 14 152.8 0 - 11 361 2253
44 Avesh Khan RR IND 10 7 1 0 200 19 9.6 15 361 3337
45 Daryl Mitchell CSK NZ 318 63 27 10 142.6 1 11.7 13 358 4712
46 Prabhsimran Singh PBKS IND 334 71 34 20 156.8 0 - 14 355 244
47 Trent Boult RR NZ 14 12 2 0 87.5 16 8.3 15 353 2730
48 T Natarajan SRH IND 0 0 0 0 - 19 9.1 14 351 1373
49 Kuldeep Yadav DC IND 47 35 2 0 114.6 16 8.7 11 348 692
50 Nithish Reddy SRH IND 303 76 15 21 142.9 3 11.6 13 347 69

MVPI: Most Valuable Player Index = Sum of batting, bowling and fielding points. 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.

 

IMAGE: Virat Kohli in the Eliminator match against Rajasthan Royals. He concluded the tournament as the highest run-scorer, amassing 741 runs in 15 matches, including a century and five fifties.

Table 2 lists the 5 Most Valuable Batters in IPL 2024 obtained by coupling the run tally and strike rate criterion; Table 3 lists the 5 Most Valuable Bowlers obtained by coupling the wicket tally and economy rate.

5 Most Valuable Batters Of IPL 2024

RankPlayerTeamFromRunsTop Score4s6sStrike RateBatting Points
1 Virat Kohli RCB IND 741 113 62 38 154.7 763.5
2 Travis Head SRH AUS 567 102 64 32 191.6 690
3 Abhishek Sharma SRH IND 484 75 36 42 204.2 612.5
4 Nicholas Pooran LSG WI 499 75 35 36 178.2 578
5 Sunil Narine KKR WI 488 109 50 33 182.1 574

Kohli's Batting Points (763.5) are only marginally higher than his runs (741), because his strike rate is just above par.

This table shows that Kohli would still have comfortably won the 'modified Purple Cap'.

To calculate the batting points we assume a par strike rate of 150.

IMAGE: Jasprit Bumrah was the stand-out bowler of IPL 2024.

5 Most Valuable Bowlers Of IPL 2024

RankPlayerTeamFromWicketsEconomyBowling Points
1 Jasprit Bumrah MI IND 20 6.5 490.5
2 Sunil Narine KKR WI 17 6.7 433
3 Varun Chakravarthy KKR IND 21 8 426
4 Harshal Patel PBKS IND 24 9.7 396
5 T Natarajan SRH IND 19 9.1 339

To calculate the bowling points (Bowl Points), we assume that every wicket is worth 18 points, and every bowler is expected to concede 9 runs per over.

So, Bumrah obtains 360 points for his 20 wickets, but also gains 130.5 points more because his economy rate of 6.5 is so much lower than the par of 9 runs per over.

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com

SRINIVAS BHOGLE, PURNENDU MAJI