Adam Gilchrist has dropped out of the top 10 for the first time and M S Dhoni, who had forced his way into that elite list last week has also had to yield place. Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan are back, while Dwayne Bravo's match-winning act for Mumbai Indians put him also into the top bracket.
Shaun Marsh, meanwhile, has consolidated his lead at the top of the value-for-money index with Balaji far behind him at No 2, but well ahead of third placed team-mate Manpreet Gony. These calculations have been done taking into account performances in all matches up to Friday's victory of Mohali over Hyderabad.
There's been a considerable reshuffle at the top of the MVP list. Though Shane Watson stays at No.1, his captain Shane Warne has now moved up to the second spot. Interestingly, it is now Mumbai and not Jaipur that has three players in the top 10 - Sanath Jayasuriya in fourth place, Shaun Pollock in eighth and Bravo at the tail end. Delhi and Mohali have two each and Hyderabad a lone presence in Rohit Sharma at the top. The fact that Chennai has none - M S Dhoni is their highest ranked player at No. 12 and the only one in the top 20 - seems to suggest that the Super Kings have got to where they have through more of a team effort than others similarly placed in the league.
"Bangalore does not have even a single player in
the top 20 indicates that none of its players
has been able to perform consistently"
The fact that Bangalore does not have even a single player in the top 20 indicates that none of its players has been able to perform consistently. Captain Rahul Dravid has come closest to doing so and is ranked No. 11 among the batsmen, but the team's dismal performance means that he loses a lot of captaincy points.
As for the bowlers, despite having played only seven matches till Friday, Sohail Tanvir has moved to the top, ahead of Glenn McGrath, Irfan Pathan, S Sreesanth and Warne. Another man making waves in the bowling is Sri Lankan Farveez Maharoof who is at No. 10 and climbing, despite having played only 8 matches.
What does all of this imply? We have said it in the past, but it bears repetition. The inaugural IPL saw huge sums of money being splurged on a few stars and relatively small amounts (though still beyond anything anybody could have imagined pre-IPL) on buying up the lesser known workmen who would make up the team.
"If you are a betting man, don't bet on the same thing
happening next time"
If you are a betting man, don't bet on the same thing happening next time. Franchisees ought to have learnt that while established stars may more often than not perform better than up and coming youngsters, the gap between the two is nowhere near as huge as the differentials in the bids would suggest. Will that mean the stars get more conservative amounts when the chance to bid for them next comes up? Or will it mean that even journeymen can count on getting bigger bucks? Your guess is as good as ours.
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