Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji present Rediff.com's Most Valuable Player Index after game 47 of IPL 10.
Set a stiff target of 458 for victory, the hosts rode on centuries from Faf du Plessis (134) and AB de Villiers (103) but failed to pull off a sensational victory, falling short by a narrow margin of eight runs.
Saker took the unusual step of publicly criticising his bowlers in the fourth and final Test against India in Sydney last month, revealing discord with staff over tactics.
The top order failed to fire in difficult conditions, but the bowlers stood out, not only performing with the ball but scoring vital runs as well.
World champions India have consolidated their top rank on the ICC ODI Team Rankings after sweeping the series against Sri Lanka, which concluded in Ranchi on Sunday.
Virtually backing India's stance on producing spin-friendly tracks, former Australian captain Ian Chappell said he does not see anything wrong in the turning track in the Nagpur Test which saw India thrash South Africa inside three days, saying matches played elsewhere on seaming tracks have ended "in the blink of an eye".
Going by the state of the pitch and the match situation after Day 1 in the ongoing third Test against South Africa in Nagpur, few are betting against another three-day finish, says Harish Kotian/Rediff.com.
Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara eye top 10 places while Ravindra Jadeja jumps to career-best third position among Test all-rounders.
Virat Kohli slammed a brilliant 138 before the bowlers produced an impressive performance as India comfortably beat South Africa by 35 runs to level the series 2-2 in Chennai on Thursday.
'We have just got to play very good cricket. The T20 series is in the past. It is a whole new story now. India will try to bounce back and hopefully we will stop them' 'We have got a very balanced bowling attack. But we don't lean too much on the spinners or the seam bowlers. We have got firepower in all the departments of our bowling'
Penpix of the South Africa squad for the 2015 cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Strangely, despite four wins on the trot, none of India's players have even figured in the top 20 of the MVPI table.
Rajneesh Gupta presents all the fascinating career numbers of players in the World Cup.
Rajneesh Gupta checks out the numbers for Virat and Faf and their boys.
Having decimated South Africa inside three days on a turning track in Mohali, India will again look to unleash their troika of spinners to spoil A B de Villiers's landmark 100th match when the two sides meet in the second Test, in Bangalore, on Saturday.
South Africans take the top 3 slots in Most Valuable Player Index.
'He has led India to wins in the World T20, the World Cup and the Champions Trophy. Which other captain in the world can boast of such a record?' 'And if it is about form, then Virat Kohli isn't in the best of form. Neither is Shikhar Dhawan. So what do you do? Drop them all?'
David Warner's blazing century sent him on top of Rediff.com's MVP table, with KKR's wicketkeeper-batsman Robin Uthappa not that far behind.
"This will probably be the biggest World Cup, so there will be great expectations and I know we will do very well for the people of the West Indies," he added.
Fast bowling coach and biomechanics expert Ian Pont discusses the rise of India medium pacer Mohit Sharma with Manu Shankar/Rediff.com
Chris Gayle joined Hashim Amla and Sachin Tendulkar as only the third batsman in the history of ODI cricket to score centuries against 11 different countries, while Shimron Hetmyer hit his maiden century as the Windies defeated the United Arab Emirates by 60 runs in their opening Group A fixture of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018 at the Old Hararians in Harare on Tuesday.
India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin surged to the top of the MRF Tyres ICC Player Rankings for Test Bowlers after a superb outing in the first Test against the West Indies in Antigua which the visiting side won by an innings and 92 runs.
Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji reveal Rediff's Most Valuable Players in IPL 10.
Rajneesh Gupta presents all the numbers from the first Test in Rajkot.
Delhi Daredevils all-rounder Chris Morris has 12 wickets, at a better-than-par economy rate of 6.6 (the par economy rate is 8 runs conceded per over), and scored 74 runs at a staggering strike rate of almost 240 (the par strike rate is 133 runs in 100 balls).
IPL Action VIII: These players went unsold
If India toyed with the South Africans, it was mainly because of awesome performances from spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
All the IPL 10 numbers, from Rajneesh Gupta.
Images from the World Cup first quarter-final between Sri Lanka and South Africa in Sydney, on Wednesday.
Praising opener Shikhar Dhawan's match-winning century against South Africa, India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said the left-hander played smart by staying at the crease even after getting his hundred.
Rajneesh Gupta profiles the cricketers playing the World Cup 2019.
As we write this we still await the crucial India-Australia knock-out in Mohali. But India's individual performances in the T20 World Cup so far haven't been truly impressive. A look at the most valuable player index (MVPI) table reveals that there's no Indian player in the top 20. MVPI merges a player's batting + bowling + fielding performance into a single 'run equivalent'. The formula to compute the MVP is devised to reward batsmen who score runs at a high strike rate, bowlers who take wickets at low economy rate and fielders who field the best (take a lot of catches and participate in run-outs). Since this is a relatively low scoring tournament we have assumed a team's par score to be 150, and each wicket to be worth 15 'runs'. It isn't a surprise that players from New Zealand dominate the rankings so far, although Joe Root tops the table after his 83 in 44 balls against South Africa.
Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni turned the clock back with a batting masterclass as the old warhorses' twin tons powered India to a 15-run win over England in the second One-day International and take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series.
Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji's Most Valuable Player Index after the South Africa ODIs presents a depressing view of the Indian players' showing in the first half of the ongoing tour
The International Cricket Council released the provisional squads of the 12 teams for next year's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand on Friday. However, co-hosts Australia and minnows Ireland decided against releasing the provisional list although they submitted 30 names to the parent body within the stipulated deadline.
India's T20 World Cup challenge has ended. But it is likely that Virat Kohli (MVPI of 338) will go on to become the tournament's most valuable player because he enjoys a lead of 109 runs over second-placed Joe Root (229).
'T20 isn't the killer. The T20 format is good for the game.' 'The majority of international cricketers still value Test cricket.'
Rajneesh Gupta presents a complete statistical IPL dossier.
Yuvraj Singh has emerged as the costliest cricketer in the IPL 8 players' auction, bought for a record Rs 16 crore (USD 2.57 million approx) by Delhi Daredevils.
India's batting sensation Virat Kohli, named player of the tournament, is also the most valuable player of World T20 2016. With a fifty and two wickets, England's Joe Root is just behind him.
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