Can Shreyas Pip Sai Sudharsan To MVP?

7 Minutes Read
Share:

June 03, 2025 10:38 IST

Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji check out who could be the Most Valuable Player of IPL 2025 before the final.

B Sai Sudarshan

IMAGE: Gujarat Titans' Sai Sudarshan in action during the IPL) 2025 game against the Delhi Capitals at the Arun Jaitley stadium in New Delhi. Photograph: ANI Photo

B Sai Sudharsan will likely be the MVP of IPL 2025.

There is an outside chance that Shreyas Iyer could unseat him. For that to happen, Shreyas must again produce the runs he scored when PBKS defeated MI, and at the same strike rate, in the final.

If MI had entered the final, Suryakumar Yadav would almost certainly have been MVP.

So how do we calculate the MVPI, Most Valuable Player Index? A batter must score a lot of runs at a good strike rate, a bowler must take a lot of wickets at a low economy rate, and a fielder must take a lot of catches, and participate in the most run outs, with direct hits being especially valuable.

Using this data, we collapse the batting, bowling and fielding performance of a player into a 'run equivalent'.

The Most Valuable Player Index (MVPI) can therefore be viewed as the total number of 'runs' that every player contributes via his batting, bowling and fielding. It's not necessarily runs scored off the bat, but it is a valid equivalent.

This has been a batter-friendly IPL, with 2 batters (Sudharsan, SKY) scoring over 700 runs, 6 batters (Shubman Gill, Mitchell Marsh, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer) scoring over 600 runs, and 11 batters (Yashavi Jaiswal, K L Rahul, Jos Buttler, Nicholas Pooran, Prabhsimran Singh) scoring over 500 runs. It could be 12 if Priyansh Arya gets a fifty in the final.

The bowlers haven't done too badly with 4 bowlers (Prasidh Krishna, Noor Ahmad, Trent Boult, Josh Hazlewood) taking over 20 wickets, and Arshdeep Singh having a fair chance of being the fifth.

Check also the last column about a player's Paisa Vasool Index (PVI). This number is the quantity of US dollars that a player receives from the franchise for every run equivalent contributed.

A 3-digit PVI constitutes exceptional value (look at Mitch Marsh, Prabhsimran Singh, Priyansh Arya, Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Ajinkya Rahane, R Sai Kishore, Vipraj Nigam, Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Mitchell Santner). They were the biggest steals.

It is almost impossible for a player receiving more than Rs 5 crores to have a 3-digit PVI value. So, any player with a PVI between 1000 and 1500 is an exceptional buy.

Generally, a PVI below 2000 would be a very good buy. Incidentally, we've defined the PVI in terms of US dollars because with a PVI in INR almost every player would have 5-digit values, and that makes comparisons more messy.

Best Performing Players Before Final

RankPlayer's NameTeamFromRunsTop Score4s6sStrike RateWicketsEconomy RateGamesMVPIPVI(US$)
1 B Sai Sudarshan GT IND 759 108 88 21 156.2 0 - 15 837 1195
2 Suryakumar Yadav MI IND 717 73 69 38 167.9 0 - 16 830 2318
3 Shubman Gill GT IND 650 93 62 24 155.9 0 - 15 723 2685
4 Shreyas Iyer PBKS IND 603 97 43 39 175.8 0 - 16 722 4359
5 Nicholas Pooran LSG WI 524 87 45 40 196.3 0 - 14 696 3550
6 Mitchell Marsh LSG AUS 627 117 56 37 163.7 0 - 13 686 583
7 Yashasvi Jaiswal RR IND 559 75 60 28 159.7 0 - 14 653 3243
8 Jos Buttler GT ENG 538 97 52 24 163 0 - 14 650 2851
9 Virat Kohli RCB IND 614 73 63 19 146.5 0 - 14 634 3897
10 Heinrich Klaasen SRH SA 487 105 42 25 172.7 0 - 14 620 4364
11 Prabhsimran Singh PBKS IND 523 91 56 28 163.4 0 - 16 584 806
12 Sunil Narine KKR WI 246 44 25 19 170.8 12 7.8 12 582 2426
13 Priyansh Arya PBKS IND 451 103 51 25 183.3 0 - 16 575 777
14 KL Rahul DC IND 539 112 52 21 149.7 0 - 13 574 2869
15 Abhishek Sharma SRH ND 439 141 46 28 193.4 0 10.2 14 573 2874
16 Aiden Markram LSG SA 445 66 38 22 148.8 4 9.3 13 553 425
17 Riyan Parag RR IND 393 95 27 27 166.5 3 8.5 14 553 2978
18 Ryan Rickelton MI SA 388 62 47 17 151 0 - 14 532 221
19 Prasidh Krishna GT IND 0 0 0 0 - 25 8.3 15 523 2137
20 Hardik Pandya MI IND 224 48 18 12 163.5 14 9.8 15 522 3685
21 Ravindra Jadeja CSK AUS 301 77 25 10 135.6 10 8.6 14 511 4144
22 Philip Salt RCB ENG 387 65 46 21 175.9 0 - 12 492 2750
23 Noor Ahmad CSK AFG 7 2 0 0 41.2 24 8.2 14 475 2477
24 Jasprit Bumrah MI IND 0 0 0 0 0 18 6.7 12 445 4759
25 Ishan Kishan SRH IND 354 106 33 15 152.6 0 24 14 427 3100
26 Axar Patel DC IND 263 43 23 15 157.5 5 8.5 12 426 4557
27 Rohit Sharma MI IND 418 81 41 22 149.3 0 - 15 422 4544
28 Travis Head SRH AUS 374 76 50 15 162.6 0 - 12 421 3912
29 Ajinkya Rahane KKR IND 390 61 36 20 147.7 0 - 13 414 426
30 Pat Cummins SRH AUS 97 22 6 7 167.2 16 9.2 14 413 5127
31 Josh Hazlewood RCB AUS 0 0 0 0 0 21 8.3 11 411 3578
32 Krunal Pandya RCB IND 105 73 9 4 129.6 15 8.6 14 405 1670
33 Vipraj Nigam DC IND 142 39 15 8 179.7 11 9.1 14 404 146
34 Trent Boult MI NZ 2 1 0 0 66.7 22 9 16 404 3640
35 Dhruv Jurel RR IND 333 70 22 22 156.3 0 - 14 398 4138
36 Jitesh Sharma RCB IND 237 85 22 15 171.7 0 - 14 395 3276
37 Nehal Wadhera PBKS IND 354 70 28 20 150.6 0 10.8 15 390 1267
38 Ayush Badoni LSG IND 329 74 27 14 148.2 2 7.8 14 387 1216
39 Varun Chakravarthy KKR IND 1 1 0 0 100 17 7.7 13 386 3657
40 Naman Dhir MI IND 252 46 24 13 182.6 0 5.3 16 384 1608
41 Marco Jansen PBKS SA 75 34 3 4 119 16 9.2 14 382 2156
42 Kuldeep Yadav DC IND 18 7 2 0 112.5 15 7.1 14 380 4102
43 Tilak Varma MI IND 343 59 23 16 138.3 0 - 16 368 2558
44 Will Jacks MI ENG 233 53 22 11 135.5 6 8.6 13 367 1683
45 Arshdeep Singh PBKS IND 2 1 0 0 33.3 18 8.8 16 366 5786
46 R Sai Kishore GT IND 5 3 0 0 50 19 9.2 15 357 659
47 Tristan Stubbs DC SA 300 41 25 11 150.8 0 20 14 346 3400
48 Abishek Porel DC IND 301 51 28 12 146.8 0 - 13 340 1384
49 Vaibhav Suryavanshi RR IND 252 101 18 24 206.6 0 - 7 321 403
50 Mitchell Santner MI NZ 40 18 2 3 121.2 10 7.9 13 319 738
 

 

 

Get Rediff News in your Inbox:
Share: