Who are IPL's most valuable players?

Who is the most valuable player of the IPL so far? The answer might be a surprise: Shane - not Warne, but Watson. But before you get ready to shoot off an outraged mail, consider our logic.

After some serious number crunching, we arrived at an index of IPL performance for all those who have played till the 30th match of the tournament - Friday's clash between Team Jaipur and Team Hyderabad. Not surprisingly, a few of the icons figure way down on the list with Ganguly at No. 51 and Dravid ranked 88th. Sehwag at No.2 is the top-ranked icon, followed by Yuvraj at No. 7 and Dhoni at No. 14.

Jaipur, not surprisingly, has the most players in the top 10 with Shane Warne and Yusuf Pathan joining Watson. Mohali have Yusuf's more famous brother Irfan, in that elite club. Delhi, interestingly, has nobody apart from Sehwag, though it does have Gambhir at No. 11.

"Delhi, interestingly, has nobody
apart from Sehwag in the top 10"

But where are these ranks coming from? We assigned batting, bowling and fielding points to each player based on his performance. We also assigned captaincy points based on team performance. We then totalled up all these points.

The batting points were worked out on the principle that T20 is not only about how much you score, but how fast you get the runs. We, therefore, worked out the average strike rate for all batsmen in the IPL so far, which turned out to be very nearly 130. The number of batting points each player got was the runs scored by him multiplied by his strike rate and divided by the average strike rate of 130.

Most Valuable Player?

Most Valuable Players	Matches	Batting Pts	Bowling Pts	Fielding Pts	Captaincy Pts	Total Pts
Shane Watson	8	246	280	20	-	546
Virender Sehwag	7	395	23	50	25	493
Shane Warne	8	52	282	55	100	489
Irfan Pathan	7	52	345	35	-	432
Adam Gilchrist	8	328	0	75	-	403
YK Pathan	8	321	70	10	-	401
Yuvraj Singh	7	206	30	75	75	386
Zaheer Khan	8	18	334	25	-	377
Shaun Pollock	7	140	158	10	50	358
Rohit Sharma	8	299	0	50	-	349

Best Batsmen	Innings	N.O	Runs	Average	Str Rate	Points
Virender Sehwag	7	1	270	45.00	190.14	395
Adam Gilchrist	8	1	284	40.57	150.26	328
Gautam Gambhir	7	1	305	50.83	139.9	328

Top Bowlers	Overs	Runs	Wickets	Econ	Econ Pts	Wkts Pts	Total
Irfan Pathan	27.3	174	12	6.36	45	300	345
Zaheer Khan	31.0	239	13	7.7	9	325	334
RP Singh	28.8	214	11	7.42	17	275	292

Not pricey, but proving priceless

Shane Watson isn't just having a terrific run, he's also proving a superb bargain. At $125,000, Watson was bought by Jaipur for less than a tenth of what Chennai paid for Dhoni, and that's now proving an inspired bid.

Jaipur's other two players in the list of 10 most valuable players overall are also better value-for-money than most others, Shane Warne having come for $450,000 and Yusuf Pathan for $ 475,000. Other teams have paid much more for their top performers. Mohali, for instance, has two players in the top 10 but at $1.06 million and $925,000, Yuvraj and Irfan haven't exactly come cheap. Similarly, Delhi's $833,750 for Sehwag is a higher price tag than any of the Jaipur high-fliers.

"At $125,000, Watson was bought by Jaipur
for less than a tenth of what Chennai paid for
Dhoni, and that's now proving an inspired bid"

The only non-Jaipur topnotch performer who sold for less than $500,000 was Bangalore's Zaheer Khan ($450,000). At $750,000 and $700,000 for Rohit Sharma and Adam Gilchrist, Hyderabad has bought performers, but nowhere near as cheap as Jaipur. Mumbai, though, has at least one reason to be satisfied: at $550,000, Shaun Pollock is proving good value for money.