IPL 4: Malinga most valuable, Valthaty best bargain

Lasith Malinga is the most valuable player (MVP) of IPL 4 so far, beating emerging star Paul Valthaty to second place by just a bit.

When it comes to value for money (VFM), however, the Malayali from Mumbai who's making waves for Kings XI Punjab is streets ahead of all competition.

Behind Malinga and Valthaty in the MVP list are Johan Botha, Robin Uthappa and Doug Bollinger. Sachin Tendulkar heads the second half of the top 10 with Virat Kohli, Kumar Sangakkara, Yusuf Pathan and Jesse Ryder rounding it off.

None of these names, apart of course from Valthaty, makes it anywhere close to the top 10 in the VFM list. That's not surprising given that most of them count their annual fees in millions of dollars while uncapped Indian players like the Kings XI opener have to make do with a maximum of $50,000.

The others on the VFM list are, therefore, predictably local players who have more than pulled their weight for their squads. At No. 2 is Rahul Sharma, followed by Ambati Rayudu, Iqbal Abdulla and Sunny Sohal, in that order. The second half of the top 10 consists of Siddharth Trivedi, Ashok Menaria, Amit Singh, M S Bisla and A G Murtaza.

How have we arrived at these names? A fair bit of number crunching went into it, involving assigning points for batting, bowling, fielding and captaincy on the basis of objective parameters, not subjective opinion, to construct an MVP index.

Here's what we did. Batting points were calculated on the principle that both the quantity of runs scored and how fast they are scored should count. So we took the average strike rate of 130 that has actually been achieved by all batsmen and used that as a base.


The total runs scored by each batsman was multiplied by his actual strike rate and divided by this par figure. Thus, a batsman who has scored, say, 300 runs in the tournament so far would get batting points equal to 300 if he has scored at a strike rate of 130, fewer points if he has accumulated them slower and more if he has got them at a better clip.


For bowlers, we used the principle that both economy and wicket taking should count. Again the average economy rate of 7.5 runs per over for the tournament so far was used as the benchmark. Bowlers with a better economy rate than this were regarded as having saved runs for their team. For instance, if a bowler has been going at 6 runs per over and has bowled 20 overs, he would actually have conceded 120 runs. At the average rate he would have conceded 150. So he is given 30 points for saving those many runs. In addition, every wicket gets him 25 points.


Fielding points are given for catches, run outs and stumpings. Catches count for 10 points, run outs for 15. In the case of wicket-keepers, however, catches and stumpings fetch 25 points each, since they are in the side mainly for their fielding.


Finally, captains are given points for the performance of their teams, 25 points for each win and minus 25 for each loss. Adding all of these points together gives us the total points accumulated by each player.


Since it would be unfair to compare someone who has played, say, five matches with another who has played nine, we then divided the total points by the number of matches played by each player to get the points per match. This was the basis for the MVP rankings.


As for the VFM rankings, that was simply a matter of dividing the points per match score by the fees payable to each player per match to get a figure for the number of points per $100,000 of fees.


To ensure that a couple of outstanding performances don't unduly skew the results, we took only those who had played at least five matches. That meant, for instance, that Chris Gayle, who would otherwise have been by far the leader in the MVP stakes, had to be dropped. But that's only fair.


What is interesting is that the MVP list has at its top some like Malinga and Bollinger who are purely bowlers, some like Sachin and Virat Kohli who are wholly or entirely batsmen and many all-rounders. The VFM list also has a similar structure. This is a departure from the past when the same index tended to yield predominantly all-rounders at the top.


It is also a change from the first three seasons that there are no foreign players at the top of the VFM list. But that is due to the fact that the likes of Shane Watson, Shaun Marsh and David Warner, who came for a pittance initially are today commanding huge fees.

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
Player	Batting Pts	Bowling Pts	Fielding Pts	Captaincy Pts	Total	Pts/Match
L Malinga	0	530	35		565	70.6
P Valthaty	372	91	20		483	69.0
J Botha	192	147	50		389	64.8
R Uthappa	220	0	240		460	57.5
D Bollinger	0	278	10		288	57.5
S Tendulkar	313	0	45	100	458	57.2
V Kohli	329	24	30		383	54.7
KSangakkara	267	0	300	-75	492	54.7
Y Pathan	183	264	35		481	53.5
J Ryder	300	101	20		421	52.6

VALUE FOR MONEY
Player	Pts/Match	Pts/$100000
Paul Valthaty	69.0	1932
Rahul Sharma	43.7	1223
Ambati Rayudu	41.4	1159
Iqbal Abdulla	40.9	1145
Sunny Sohal	32.3	905
Siddharth Trivedi	28.8	807
Ashok Menaria	27.9	782
Amit Singh	27.0	755
MS Bisla	24.7	692
AG Murtaza	23.7	665