IPL 2024: MVP Race: Tough Task To Beat Sunil Narine

Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji present Rediff.com's Most Valuable Player Index of IPL 2024 after Game 46.

IMAGE: Kolkata Knight Riders star Sunil Narine on the attack during the IPL 2024 game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Photograph: BCCI

As Sunil Narine continued to blaze away, there was speculation that there might be two Caps -- Orange and Purple -- on his head.

While that is looking unlikely now, it will still be hard to dislodge the MVPI cap sitting firmly on his head.

When you score 357 runs at a strike rate of 184, and take 10 wickets at an economy rate of 7, the MVPI soars into the stratosphere!

Narine's MVPI is currently 692, still 166 ahead of the very prolific Virat Kohli who is second at 528.

MVPI collapses a player's batting, bowling and fielding performance into a simple 'runs equivalent', and rewards batters who score a lot of runs at a high strike rate and bowlers who take a lot of wickets at a low economy rate.

IMAGE: RCB's Virat Kohli, the current Orange Cap holder. Photograph: BCCI

What the cricket fan would find most heart-warming is Rishabh Pant at third place with a MVPI of 489. What a delight to have him back impervious and unscathed!

It is always interesting to look at the last column of the table listing the paisa vasool (or player value) index (PVI).

The more expensive players tend to have a PVI of over 2000 when converted to US$, but we also find players (often bought at their base price) having a PVI(US$) of 100 or less.

Players like Tristan Stubbs (PVI 104), B Sai Sudarshan (45), Jake Fraser-McGurk (121), Phil Salt (275), Shashank Singh (45), Matheesha Pathirana (58) and Rajat Patidar (66) have provided fabulous value.

Best Performing Players so far in IPL 2024 (after Match 46 ending 29.4.24)

Rank	Player	Team	From	Runs	Top Score	4s	6s	Strike Rate	Wickets	Economy Rate	M	MVPI	PVI(US$)
1	Sunil Narine	KKR	WI	357	109	37	24	184	10	7	8	692	597
2	Virat Kohli	RCB	IND	500	113	46	20	147.5	0	-	10	528	2445
3	Rishabh Pant	DC	IND	371	88	29	23	160.6	0	-	10	489	2816
4	Sanju Samson	RR	IND	385	82	36	17	161.1	0	-	9	463	2342
5	Ruturaj Gaikwad	CSK	IND	447	108	48	13	149.5	0	-	9	458	1015
6	Travis Head	SRH	AUS	338	102	40	19	211.3	0	-	8	436	1208
7	KL Rahul	LSG	IND	378	82	34	14	144.3	0	-	9	429	3069
8	Abhishek Sharma	SRH	ND	303	63	22	27	214.9	0	9	9	419	1202
9	Tristan Stubbs	DC	SA	273	71	18	19	192.3	2	11	10	412	104
10	Shivam Dube	CSK	IND	350	66	24	26	172.4	0	-	9	396	782
11	Heinrich Klaasen	SRH	SA	295	80	9	28	185.5	0	-	9	394	1032
12	Tilak Varma	MI	IND	336	65	23	18	158.5	0	12	9	388	339
13	B Sai Sudarshan	GT	IND	418	84	43	9	135.7	0	-	10	383	45
14	Philip Salt	KKR	ENG	324	89	37	17	155.8	0	-	8	375	275
15	Nicholas Pooran	LSG	WI	291	64	17	22	165.3	0	-	9	366	3386
16	Riyan Parag	RR	IND	332	84	22	21	159.6	0	10	9	363	811
17	Jake Fraser-McGurk	DC	AUS	247	84	22	22	237.5	0	-	5	356	121
18	Axar Patel	DC	IND	134	66	9	6	135.4	7	7.4	10	354	2917
19	Andre Russell	KKR	WI	179	64	17	12	186.5	9	11.1	8	350	2754
20	Rohit Sharma	MI	IND	311	105	32	18	160.3	0	-	9	349	3551
21	Jos Buttler	RR	ENG	319	107	32	11	150.5	0	-	8	347	2232
22	Jasprit Bumrah	MI	IND	11	8	1	0	100	14	6.6	9	343	2710
23	Shashank Singh	PBKS	IND	263	68	19	18	182.6	0	-	9	343	45
24	Marcus Stoinis	LSG	AUS	254	124	22	12	155.8	3	8.7	9	342	2491
25	Dinesh Karthik	RCB	IND	262	83	21	19	195.5	0	-	10	335	1413
26	Sam Curran	PBKS	ENG	152	63	14	3	116	12	9.7	9	323	4436
27	Faf du Plessis	RCB	SA	288	62	29	14	159.1	0	-	10	323	1865
28	Shubman Gill	GT	IND	320	89	28	9	141	0	-	10	306	1969
29	Ravindra Jadeja	CSK	AUS	157	57	14	2	131.9	5	7.5	9	301	4117
30	Rashid Khan	GT	AFG	85	32	9	2	149.1	8	8	10	297	4346
31	Ishan Kishan	MI	IND	212	69	23	13	165.6	0	-	9	292	4045
32	Harshal Patel	PBKS	IND	1	1	0	0	20	14	10.2	9	272	3346
33	Matheesha Prathirana	CSK	SL	0	0	0	0	-	13	7.7	6	269	58
34	Jonny Bairstow	PBKS	ENG	204	108	20	12	168.6	0	-	7	263	1988
35	Yashasvi Jaiswal	RR	IND	249	104	30	10	154.7	0	-	9	263	1178
36	Rajat Patidar	RCB	IND	211	52	11	18	175.8	0	-	10	260	66
37	Pat Cummins	SRH	AUS	42	31	2	3	140	10	9.1	9	257	6178
38	Quinton de Kock	LSG	SA	236	81	27	9	136.4	0	-	9	240	2178
39	Yuzvendra Chahal	RR	IND	0	0	0	0	-	13	9	9	240	2098
40	T Natarajan	SRH	IND	0	0	0	0	-	13	9	7	240	1291
41	Hardik Pandya	MI	IND	197	46	16	10	151.5	4	11.9	9	239	4861
42	Mustafizur Rahman	CSK	BAN	0	0	0	0	-	14	9.8	8	235	659
43	Shreyas Iyer	KKR	IND	218	50	20	9	136.3	0	-	8	235	3589
44	Trent Boult	RR	NZ	0	0	0	0	0	10	7.8	9	235	2637
45	Will Jacks	RCB	ENG	176	100	12	15	191.3	2	11.3	5	234	1177
46	Prabhsimran Singh	PBKS	IND	208	54	22	13	163.8	0	-	9	232	240
47	Daryl Mitchell	CSK	NZ	198	52	14	6	132	1	9	8	231	4694
48	Kuldeep Yadav	DC	IND	1	1	0	0	33.3	12	8.4	7	229	752
49	Tim David	MI	AUS	182	45	10	12	164	0	-	9	228	2803
50	Abdul Samad	SRH	IND	148	37	15	8	187.3	0	-	9	220	1408

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com

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