Star Batsmen in the IPL
The fourth edition of the Indian Premier League will be back in 2011 with more teams and more players up for grabs in the upcoming auction.
There has been a lot of talk about player retention heading into the auction for Indian Premier League (IPL) season four. Different franchises have adopted different strategies - Mumbai and Chennai, who were the most successful teams last year, retained four players each. The other six franchises with an option to retain kept four players cumulatively.
This means that there will be plenty of top players up for grabs at the auction. In an effort to understand which batsmen franchises should target, we decided to look at past performances to identify the stars from IPL seasons 1 and 2. In a subsequent article, we will look at a more detailed analysis of IPL season 3. In the analysis below, only batsmen who have played in at least 20 matches have been considered, which means the likes of Hayden, Symonds, Taylor and McCullum have been left out.
The bubble graph helps us identify the most consistent players across the first two seasons of the IPL. The horizontal axis represents runs per innings (RPI), while the vertical is strike rate. The size of bubble represents number of runs scored.
The more top right a batsman is on the graph above, the higher his strike rate and RPI implying the better his performance. Gilchrist and Raina turn out to be the most consistent performers, while Sehwag and Yusuf Pathan have the highest strike rates.
Meanwhile, de Villiers, Gambhir, Rohit Sharma and Dhoni also have good records.
Another measure of overall batting performance is the Batting Momentum, which combines runs per innings and strike rate into one single measure. The table below shows the top 15 batsmen for the first two seasons of the IPL.
| Player | Runs | Runs per innings | Strike rate | Batting Momentum |
| Gilchrist, AC | 931 | 31.0 | 144.8 | 44.9 |
| Raina, SK | 855 | 30.5 | 141.6 | 43.2 |
| Jayasuriya, ST | 735 | 28.3 | 146.7 | 41.5 |
| Sehwag, V | 604 | 24.2 | 168.7 | 40.8 |
| Pathan, YK | 678 | 24.2 | 159.2 | 38.5 |
| Sangakkara, KC | 652 | 29.6 | 124.9 | 37.0 |
| de Villiers, AB | 560 | 29.5 | 123.6 | 36.4 |
| Dhoni, MS | 746 | 27.6 | 130.7 | 36.1 |
| Sharma, RG | 766 | 27.4 | 130.3 | 35.6 |
| Gambhir, G | 820 | 28.3 | 124.8 | 35.3 |
| Dilshan, TM | 522 | 26.1 | 124.3 | 32.4 |
| Smith, GC | 653 | 28.4 | 113.0 | 32.1 |
| Tendulkar, SR | 552 | 27.6 | 115.0 | 31.7 |
| Yuvraj Singh | 639 | 22.8 | 133.4 | 30.4 |
| Dravid, RS | 642 | 24.7 | 120.7 | 29.8 |
Based on this analysis, you would think franchises should keep an eye out for players like Yusuf Pathan, AB de Villiers, Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir. Age is a factor franchises must consider, which is probably why someone like a Gilchrist was not retained. Overall, there are going to be a lot of big names to choose from and franchises need to value players wisely. As we get closer to the IPL auction, we will continue to analyze player valuations and identify the men to watch for in the next edition of the country’s premier T20 competition.
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