Gayle continues to be the Most Valuable Player in IPL 6

Gayle’s sixes got bigger, Watson played with a passion for Rajasthan Royals that is harder to spot when he plays for Australia, Mike Hussey made you wonder why he retired so soon, James Faulkner gave indications that he might seriously trouble England in the Ashes series, and Dwayne Bravo left you wondering if he bowls better than he bats, observes Purnendu Maji and Srinivas Bhogle.

It has been a long and bittersweet IPL6. Most of us are probably happy that it is ending. 

It is sad that the towel in Sreesanth’s pocket might be IPL6’s most lingering memory. But there were some outstanding cricketing performances too. Gayle’s sixes got bigger, Watson played with a passion for Rajasthan Royals that is harder to spot when he plays for Australia, Mike Hussey made you wonder why he retired so soon, James Faulkner gave indications that he might seriously trouble England in the Ashes series, and Dwayne Bravo left you wondering if he bowls better than he bats.

Virat Kohli showed that he has mastered practically every batting skill, although he still has to learn that captaincy is more than just gritting your teeth and scowling continually through a stubble. And Harbhajan Singh showed that he still retains his bowling skills especially when his former mate Anil Kumble eggs him on.

Sadly, there were also some unhappy pointers: Sehwag lost his confidence, and his strike rate, Yuvraj Singh lost his motivation, Lasith Malinga lost his lethal yorker, Mahela Jayawardene lost his resolve, and Kumar Sangakkara seemed to lose all interest.

The table below shows IPL6’s fifty most valuable players based on the MVPI. The most valuable player index (MVPI) collapses a player’s batting, bowling and fielding performances into a one-dimensional ‘run equivalent’. The best MVPI scores are obtained if a player scores a lot of runs at a high strike rate, takes a lot of wickets at a low economy rate or is responsible for the most number of catches and stumpings. The higher the MVPI, the better is the player’s performance.

 

We can also define a second index: paisa vasool index (PVI). To obtain a player’s PVI we divide his total money offered by his MVPI. So the PVI estimates how many dollars the franchise owner pays the player for every ‘run’ scored. The lower the PVI, the greater the value offered by the player. 

Notice that most top Indian players have high PVI values. There’s a story there, and a worrying one. Established Indian players get paid way too much because of the requirement of 7 Indians in the playing eleven, and uncapped Indians get paid way too little because of the silly rule that they can’t make it to the auction.

If we drop this rule, allow 5 non-Indians in the playing eleven, and legalize betting, IPL could still continue to be one of cricket’s favourite and wondrous things.

Photograph: BCCI