IPL 2025: Nicholas Pooran is MVP, But Faces Competition

Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji present Rediff's Most Valuable Player Index of IPL 2025 after Game 39.

IMAGE: Nicholas Pooran sits comfortably atop the Orange Cap leaderboard. Photograph: BCCI

Nicholas Pooran is holding on as the MVP of the 2025 IPL after 39 games with a MVPI of 504. But he's facing competition from Sai Sudharsan (459) and Jos Buttler (426).

As the early run feast abates we also see bowlers gaining ascendancy, with Prasidh Krishna (16 wickets at an economy rate of 7.3) jumping to the 5th place in the MVPI table.

Hardik Pandya (347), at 7th position, is the most impressive all-rounder, although he's been more a bowler than batter. Sunil Narine (337) is 8th, continuing his impressive unsmiling ways.

Some early batters who glittered, like Mitchell Marsh (331), Shreyas Iyer (325) and Phil Salt (278), are losing some allure. But Ajinkya Rahane (289) seems to be blessed with eternal luminosity.

Players offering the best value for money include Aiden Markram (paid US$ 383 for every 'run' scored), Priyansh Arya (PVI of 758), Mitchell Marsh (691), Ajinkya Rahane (349) and Tim David (908).

We will carry MVPI and PVI updates every week as we stay glued to cricket's IPL festivities.

IMAGE: Krishna lead the Purple Cap list. Photograph: BCCI

The most valuable player index (MVPI), used to determine our ratings, has individual components for batting, bowling and fielding performances that eventually get added up into a single metric.

To compute batting performance, it judiciously combines the total runs scored with strike rate; likewise, the bowling performance is computed using both the number of wickets and economy rate.

This formula therefore allows us to more accurately rate the top batting and bowling performances, and determine the contenders for, what we might call, the “Shadow Orange Cap” and “Shadow Purple Cap”.

Shadow Orange Cap current winner: Nicholas Pooran (468). Current contenders: B Sai Sudharsan (423), Jos Buttler (390)

Shadow Purple Cap current winner: Prasidh Krishna (341). Current contenders: Kuldeep Yadav (293), Varun Chakravarthy (258)

So, for now, the shadow winners are in sync with the winner, but we'll keep tracking!

Best performing players so far at IPL 18 (after Match 39 ending 21.4.24)

Rank	Player's Name	Team	From	Runs	Top Score	4s	6s	Str Rate	W	Eco	M	MVPI	PVI(US$)
1	Nicholas Pooran	LSG	WI	368	87	30	31	205.6	0	-	8	504	2801
2	B Sai Sudharsan	GT	IND	417	82	42	15	152.2	0	-	8	459	1245
3	Jos Buttler	GT	ENG	356	97	39	15	165.6	0	-	8	426	2486
4	Suryakumar Yadav	MI	IND	333	68	33	17	162.4	0	-	8	365	3011
5	Prasidh Krishna	GT	IND	0	0	0	0	-	16	7.3	8	359	1779
6	Aiden Markram	LSG	SA	274	66	26	12	149.7	2	8.3	8	351	383
7	Hardik Pandya	MI	IND	104	42	9	6	170.5	11	8.9	7	347	3168
8	Sunil Narine	KKR	WI	147	44	14	12	177.1	7	7.6	7	337	2394
9	Priyansh Arya	PBKS	IND	254	103	24	18	201.6	0	-	8	337	758
10	Shubman Gill	GT	IND	305	90	33	9	153.3	0	-	8	336	3301
11	Mitchell Marsh	LSG	AUS	299	81	30	17	168	0	-	7	331	691
12	Yashasvi Jaiswal	RR	IND	307	75	25	17	139.5	0	-	8	326	3712
13	Shreyas Iyer	PBKS	IND	263	97	17	20	185.2	0	-	8	325	5533
14	Virat Kohli	RCB	IND	322	73	27	11	140	0	-	8	318	4440
15	KL Rahul	DC	IND	266	93	22	13	158.3	0	-	6	316	2606
16	Kuldeep Yadav	DC	IND	10	5	2	0	142.9	12	6.3	7	303	2572
17	Ajinkya Rahane	KKR	IND	271	61	24	15	146.5	0	-	8	289	349
18	Travis Head	SRH	AUS	242	67	33	9	168.1	0	-	7	286	2879
19	Philip Salt	RCB	ENG	213	65	26	13	179	0	-	8	278	2781
20	Abhishek Sharma	SRH	ND	232	141	31	10	188.6	0	10.3	7	270	3050
21	Ryan Rickleton	MI	SA	191	62	24	8	144.7	0	-	7	268	251
22	Varun Chakravarthy	KKR	IND	0	0	0	0	-	10	6.5	8	264	3056
23	Heinrich Klaasen	SRH	SA	210	37	18	10	159.1	0	-	7	264	5125
24	Riyan Parag	RR	IND	212	43	14	14	148.3	0	6.8	8	262	3592
25	R Sai Kishore	GT	IND	1	1	0	0	100	12	8.2	8	259	519
26	Tilak Varma	MI	IND	231	59	19	10	141.7	0	-	8	248	2169
27	Prabhsimran Singh	PBKS	IND	209	69	28	8	168.5	0	-	8	244	1102
28	Ravindra Jadeja	CSK	AUS	145	53	9	5	126.1	5	8.7	8	241	5021
29	Noor Ahmad	CSK	AFG	1	1	0	0	10	12	7.7	8	239	2813
30	Mohammed Siraj	GT	IND	0	0	0	0	-	12	8.8	8	233	3534
31	Sanju Samson	RR	IND	224	66	23	10	143.6	0	-	7	232	5216
32	Rajat Patidar	RCB	IND	221	64	19	10	151.4	0	-	8	229	3229
33	Vipraj Nigam	DC	IND	54	39	6	3	207.7	7	9	7	228	129
34	Arshdeep Singh	PBKS	IND	2	1	0	0	33.3	11	8.6	8	222	5451
35	Tim David	RCB	AUS	142	50	11	12	194.5	0	-	8	222	908
36	Shimron Hetmyer	RR	WI	176	52	13	9	153	0	-	8	222	3331
37	Naman Dhir	MI	IND	130	46	12	6	178.1	0	4	8	220	1604
38	Marco Jansen	PBKS	SA	68	34	2	4	130.8	8	9.2	8	220	2139
39	Dhruv Jurel	RR	IND	191	70	14	11	154	0	-	8	220	4278
40	Digvesh Rathi	LSG	IND	0	0	0	0	-	9	7.4	8	218	93
41	Harshit Rana	KKR	IND	23	10	3	0	74.2	11	9.2	8	217	1239
42	Shivam Dube	CSK	IND	230	50	15	13	133.7	0	-	8	214	3770
43	Khaleel Ahmed	CSK	IND	0	0	0	0	-	11	9.2	8	210	1537
44	Tristan Stubbs	DC	SA	183	38	14	8	160.5	0	20	7	209	2815
45	Sherfane Rutherford	GT	WI	201	46	15	13	155.8	0	-	8	209	836
46	Aniket Verma	SRH	IND	159	74	8	14	187.1	0	-	7	209	84
47	MS Dhoni	CSK	IND	134	30	10	8	152.3	0	-	8	205	1312
48	Nitish Rana	RR	IND	176	81	21	8	177.8	0	9	8	204	1384
49	Axar Patel	DC	IND	140	39	14	6	159.1	1	9.4	7	201	4829
50	Angkrish Raghuvanshi	KKR	IND	197	50	24	10	148.1	0	-	7	201	1003

Team ' From country ' Runs (scored) ' Top score ' No of 4s ' No of 6s ' Strike rate ' W: Wickets taken ' Eco: Economy rate ' M: Matches played ' MVPI: Most valuable player index = sum of batting, bowling and fielding points '*Run outs are counted as 1 (wicket) for a direct hit, and 0.5 (wicket) if the fielder is an equal participant in a run out dismissal ' PVI: Paisa vasool index.