Rookie Indians still offer paisa vasool

After IPL2's first 10 matches, the numbers still have an unsettled look about them. Blame it on the rain, and IPL2's awkward schedule: Mumbai Indians have completed only one match, while Bangalore Royal Challengers are getting ready to play their fourth match!

Rookie Indians still offer the best value

As with IPL1, young Indian cricketers -- offered money ranging between $30,000 - $50,000; it is very hard to find exact prices paid to non-auctioned players -- still provide the best value for money (PVI).

The real surprise in this list is to find a handful of big names like Scott Styris, A B de Villiers, Matthew Hayden, Dwayne Bravo, Lasith Malinga and Adam Gilchrist – earning 5 to 20 times more than young Indian players and still having a PVI below 1000. This constitutes exceptional performance.

'Expensive' players seldom have a PVI below 2000

Expensive players -- with prices over $700,000 -- usually find it very difficult to have a paisa vasool index (PVI) above 2000. The table below lists the PVI of the 30 most expensive players.

Only 8 of these 30 players currently have a PVI below 2000: Rahul Dravid, R P Singh, Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle, Rohit Sharma, Adam Gilchrist, Suresh Raina and Daniel Vettori. These players offers exceptional value for money.

On the other hand, Jean-Paul Duminy, Jacques Kallis, Gautam Gambhir, Manoj Tewari and Tyron Henderson -- with a PVI of over 5000 -- have a bit of work to do to justify their high price tag.

Quality matters

After playing his first IPL2 match, Rahul Dravid said that one needs to play real cricketing shots to succeed this time: You can't just "tee off" like you do on bland Indian pitches.

What Dravid said about batting is equally true about bowling. The most valuable players in IPL2 so far have, in many cases, also been among the most gifted.

The table below lists the 20 most valuable players after the first 10 IPL2 matches. This is based on Rediff.com's most valuable player index (MVPI).

This list is slightly misleading because only players who have played more matches (M) tend to show up. But at least 10 of the 20 players here are cricketing greats of their generation. This list would almost certainly have included Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya too if Mumbai Indians had played their second match.

Almost half the top players are aged over 30 – and therefore started their cricketing career well before the appearance of Twenty20 cricket. But they are still on the list because of their impeccable pedigree.

Strike rates tell a story

In Twenty20 cricket, par strike rates tend to be well over 120 runs in 100 balls, and the best batsmen often have strike rates of over 150. The table below lists IPL2 players with the best strike rates. Only players who have aggregated more than 35 runs are included in the list.

The strike rate table points to something rather interesting: batsmen who score rapidly usually offer significantly better value for money. Among batsmen with a strike rate exceeding 130, only Irfan Pathan and Yuvraj Singh have a PVI above 2000. So, other things being equal, the franchise owner should pick the big hitter.

In fact he can do even better. A detailed regression model fitted last year by clever young students from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, indicated that a batsman with the highest product of (strike rate * average score) offered the best value for money.