3 Indian Premier League stars who didn't live up to their hype 

Cricket in India is not just a sport, it's the religion where people of all background come together to celebrate the beauty of the game with a lot of pride and happiness. Any cricketing event in India is attended by thousands of fans, it's not the team nor a player but it's the game that people have loved over all these years and will continue to happen.

Introduction of the Indian Premier League (IPL, a T20 format) on 18 April 2008 just added to the growing popularity of the game as India had won the first T20 world cup in 2007. That was the beginning of a new era as the new age format was gaining popularity because of its fast-paced nature.

It's been 10 years till date and IPL has produced hundreds of youngsters from which the selectors pick players who can represent their national team. Many of them have made into their country's national team because of their performance in IPL with the likes of Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and many more. But on the other side, there have been players who have faded away even after an amazing IPL career.

Here is a list of three players who faded away from the spotlight.

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#1 Paul Valthaty

Paul Valthaty

If at all you have witnessed IPL 2011 you would surely be surprised as to why Paul Valthaty couldn't make it. Paul represented the U-19 India side in 2002 World Cup lead by Parthiv Patel which included Stuart Binny and Irfan Pathan as well. Never did he come into the spotlight until his role for the Kings XI Punjab in 2011 IPL proved his value.

Paul represented Kings XI Punjab in 2011 edition and scored the first century of the season against the mighty Chennai Super Kings. Having a look at the stats of his career in IPL.

2011 IPL: Paul Scored 463 runs from 14 matches with the highest score of 120 and two half-centuries with a strike rate of over 138.98. His impact didn't just stop with the batting, he had a decent record with the bowl as well, picking up 7 wickets out of 14 matches with 4/29 being his best bowling figures.

2012 IPL: We could see the hype that was created around Paul was diminishing when he scored just 30 runs out of 6 matches.

2013 IPL: This edition was a disastrous one as he got to play only one match, and he could score only six runs.

That was the end of Paul Valthaty in the IPL scenario as he remained unsold in 2014. He now plays for Air India.

#2 Rahul Sharma

Rahul Sharma

The right arm leg-break bowler from Punjab is another example of someone who disappeared from the scene all of a sudden. Rahul made his debut for Deccan Chargers in 2010 where he took five wickets in the six matches that he played.

It was 2011 that proved out to be a break-through season for Rahul. He was picked by a debut franchise Pune Warriors where he got to play 11 matches and picked 14 wickets with 3/13 being his best bowling figures. He became the talk of the town when his 4-0-7-2 bowling figures against Mumbai had the best economical figure in 2011 IPL.

In the same year Dec 8, 2011, Rahul graced himself with the Blue jersey against West Indies and took 3 wickets. It did seem that India had got a new star until all fell apart when he was tested positive for drugs and from there he never came back to the ODI team.

But back again, Rahul made his T20 debut for India in 2012 against Australia and out of the two matches he took three wickets, but the allegation against him had a greater impact on his professional career and that was the end of a decent right arm leg breaker who had all the signs of making it big.

#3 Karn Sharma

Karn Sharma

Karn Sharma, who had outstanding records in back-to-back seasons of IPL, could not perform well in the blue jersey. He was picked by Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 2013 edition of IPL where he performed extremely well, clinching 11 wickets in 13 matches. This showed the signs of a promising young talent in the coming years.

With the decent success of 2013, Sharma was auctioned at 3.75 crores in 2014 season. This was the biggest cheque to be handled by Karn Sharma, with hopes of selectors and his dreams of making into Indian cricket team was just a few steps away from him. He proved his mettle back again by bagging 15 wickets out of the 14 matches he played for Sunrisers Hyderabad.

His performance remained constant with decent spells, his value at IPL took a leap when Chennai Super Kings took him up for 5 Crores in 2018 IPL season

He won in 2016 with Sunrisers Hyderabad, again won in 2017 with Mumbai Indians and he had his hands on the trophy for the third consecutive time with Chennai Super Kings in 2018.

With the records of this amplitude, the stage was set expecting the same from him in the Indian National team. He did have a decent debut in T20 international against England in 2014 but his performance was overshadowed by his terrible ODI career where he failed miserably against Sri Lanka where he went wicketless. That was the last time Karn Sharma could put on the blue jersey.