IPL 2024: Most Valuable Performances

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

Rank	Player	Team	From	Run	Top Score	4s	6s	Strike Rate	Wickets	Economy	Match	MVPI	PVI(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

Rank	Player	Team	From	Runs	Top Score	4s	6s	Strike Rate	Batting 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

Rank	Player	Team	From	Wickets	Economy	Bowling 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.

IPL 2024

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com

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