The fallout from Kochigate and the subsequent suspension of Lalit Modi over-shadowed the final and helped us forget to write a post naming our XI of the tournament. We didn’t watch every game. In fact we didn’t even watch half of them, but we have seen enough to name our XI. As per the IPL rules, we have limited ourselves to a maximum of four overseas players – although we have in fact only picked three.
1. Sachin Tendulkar (Mumbai)– the leading run-scorer in the tournament was the main reason behind Mumbai’s dominance of the regular season. If he was playing for
2. Murali Vijay (Chennai)– Controversially (probably) selected ahead of Kallis, we have opted for Vijay because his superior strike (156.84) would dovetail better with Tendulkar than Kallis’ more methodical approach. And his 127 off only 56 balls against Rajasthan was arguably the innings of the season.
3. Suresh Raina (Chennai)– Third in the leading run-scorers list and at a strike rate of over 142 too, Raina continued his good form in the T20 format and was consistency personified. Man of the match in the final and his fielding was top-class throughout
4. Saurabh Tiwary (Mumbai)– Gets in ahead of more celebrated names like Symonds, Watson and Jayawardene. Tiwary continually provided the icing on the cake to the excellent starts usually provided for Mumbai by Tendulkar; and in the semi-final (when Sachin failed) his innings provided the platform for Pollard to launch Mumbai into orbit.
5. Robin Uthappa (
6. MS Dhoni, Captain (Chennai)– The inspirational captain behind Chennai’s success and the man that saved their bacon in the do-or-die match against
7. Kieron Pollard (Mumbai) – The best all-rounder in the tournament. With the bat he had the highest strike-rate (185.71), with the ball he took a steady supply of wickets at a relatively good economy rate and he was electric in the field. If Mumbai had not held him back until it was too late in the final, who knows what could have happened?
8. Ravichandran Ashwin (Chennai)– With a superlative economy rate of 6.10, Ashwin’s off-breaks typically gave Chennai a great start with the new ball. Ashwin was yet another factor behind Chennai’s resurgence from the mid-point of the season.
9. Amit Mishra (
10. Lasith Malinga (Mumbai)– Malinga’s ability to bowl yorkers at will is a priceless commodity in T20 and with his unorthodox action, he can be unplayable at times. Took 15 wickets and did so at a decent economy rate of just over seven.
11. Doug Bollinger (Chennai) – Just pips his Australian colleague Ryan Harris and Zaheer Khan. The arrival of Bollinger coincided with Chennai’s resurgence and his performance in the semi-final and final played a big part in his team’s triumph. In his first match he took two for 15 from four overs against Rajasthan. This was the match that saw 469 runs making it all the more astounding.
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