5 most underrated players In IPL history

One of the things that has been constant with the Indian Premier League has been the insane fame and recognition that it brings to the players. Probably the IPL’s biggest trait has been its ability to raise the seemingly unknown players to a position of prominence and esteem.

However, despite this, we have seen numerous players over the years that have consistently performed for their respective teams and are yet not regarded in a high position as others.

These players have played for various franchises and have often done the tidy work that has helped their teams remarkably well. However, when you discuss some of the great players who have played in this tournament, one tends to ignore these players and their vital contributions.

Here, we have listed five such players and the importance that they held or still hold for their respective teams.

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#5 Mitchell McClenaghan

Mitchell

McClenaghen

Mumbai Indians have always had the services of some of the best bowlers in world cricket. The likes of Dilhara Fernando, Lasith Malinga and Zaheer Khan carried the mantle in the earlier years of the IPL.

Afterwards, Malinga continued to be an instrumental figure but Jasprit Bumrah’s sudden upsurge has made him the mainstay in their team. However, amongst all this glitter, Mitchell McClenaghan has managed to carve out a niche for himself.

The Kiwi pacer has had a rather unsatisfactory international career. However, in the IPL, he has become an excellent wicket-taking option for Mumbai Indians. He is someone who has consistently bowled the difficult overs at the start and the end of the innings.

McClenaghan is a southpaw and the pitch at Wankhede generally helps him to generate pace and angle from a higher trajectory. The 32-year-old has taken a staggering 71 wickets in 52 matches at a strike rate of 16.76.

He has taken at least 15 or more scalps in three of the four complete seasons he has played so far. Even in the last season, he notched 14 wickets despite having played only 11 matches.

In one game so far this season, McClenaghan has already taken three wickets and looks set to lead the pace attack this season. In addition to his bowling capabilities, McClenaghan has also been used as a pinch-hitter on certain occasions. Yesterday too, he scalped three crucial wickets in his quota of four overs.

Despite all this, we rarely speak of him in the same bracket as some of the bowlers, don’t we?

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#4 Yusuf Pathan

Yusuf Pathan

Yusuf Pathan’s case has been one peculiar one throughout the history of the IPL. He started off being a vital cog in Shane Warne’s victorious Rajasthan Royals setup and stayed there for three seasons.

Pathan began as a hard-hitting striker who could change the course of the game within a few overs. He also often displayed his maturity by slowing down the innings and taking the hard route to reach a respectable total at times.

After being bought for big bucks by Kolkata Knight Riders, Pathan displayed his worth for them too, with timely important contributions.

However, though his big-hitting abilities seem to have waned down throughout the years, Pathan has always managed to deliver those two-three exceptional performances at crucial junctures of the tournament.

Gradually, the teams began to use him as a floater of sorts; someone whose batting position could be varied according to the situation of the match. However, he still has managed to score 3165 runs in the IPL at an average nearing 30. His strike rate of 143.86 does true justice to his game play.

He can roll his arm over whenever required and has scalped 42 wickets at an economy rate of 7.39. Pathan has been a part of three IPL winning sides and for a man of his achievements, we don’t appreciate him enough.

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#3 Robin Uthappa

Robbin Uthappa

Robin Uthappa has been a pillar for KKR throughout their thick and thin, often guiding his team through difficult phases of the innings with aplomb.

Ever since having improved his fitness standards, Uthappa has seen a new wave of success coming towards him from an individual perspective in the IPL. He has always been a natural stroke-maker and that augurs well with KKR, who usually deployed him as an opener in his initial seasons there.

That gave Uthappa the license to take advantage of the field restrictions and often carve out gaps in the field and notch boundaries consistently. However, in the recent seasons, he has been given the anchor's role at number 3.

Given the amount of talent that he carries, Uthappa has done reasonably well even there. His ability to rotate the strike brilliantly against the spinners, and even improvise some shots in the middle overs to increase the run rate has gauged well with the demands of the team. What's the best credential he's got? He hits them straight as an arrow, down the ground.

Additionally, he even kept wickets for KKR for a long period of time. Now, it must be noted that KKR has majorly been a spinner-friendly team. They have had the likes of Brag Hogg, Kuldeep Yadav, Sunil Narine and Piyush Chawla bowling for them.

For having managed to keep well to these exceptional spinners, Uthappa certainly deserves more credit. With 4121 runs to his name, Uthappa is the fifth highest run-scorer in the history of the IPL and he deserves to be praised much more for that. Not to mention, he has an orange cap under his belt as well.

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#2 Subramaniam Badrinath

Subramaniam Badrinath

Chennai Super Kings have always been a team that has believed in maintaining their core intact throughout the seasons. One of their earliest servants in the league was Subramaniam Badrinath - an exceptional batsman who batted at number four usually for MS Dhoni’s side.

In a team filled with hard-hitting batsmen, Badrinath was the stabilizer. He was used brilliantly by his captain and the team management too. The Tamil Nadu-based batsman wasn’t the quintessential modern day T20 player.

However, he had certain qualities, which if utilized well, could turn out to be very valuable for any successful franchise. Firstly, Badrinath was a technically solid batsman but could also strike some meaty blows towards the fag end of the innings.

MS Dhoni utilized him as a floater, with no defined role and someone who had to vary his game play according to the demands of the situation. One needs to be smart, wily and technically sound to do this role to perfection.

To his appreciation, Badrinath was the ideal batsman for this sort of responsibility and he did so to perfection until age caught up with him. He has an average of 30.65 in 95 IPL matches that he played in.

Badrinath also scored 11 half-centuries, but the immense impact that he had in some matches cannot be measured through dire numbers and statistics.

There is a reason why he was held in high regard amongst the CSK faithful and hence Badrinath was an essential member of the CSK side that won two consecutive IPL titles in 2010 and 2011.

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#1 Piyush Chawla

Piyush Chawla

To fathom how underrated Piyush Chawla has been over the years, just see this; he is actually the third highest wicket-taker in the history of the tournament.

With 141 wickets from 145 matches, Chawla has consistently been a natural wicket-taking option for his teams. He started off at Kings XI Punjab, where he was more of a traditional leg-spinner who would be used in the middle-overs. He would get the ball to flight and deceive the batsman in the air itself.

However, in the last few years, we have seen a different version of Chawla. Due to the emergence of Kuldeep Yadav and the brilliance of Sunil Narine, Chawla has adopted a more defensive role and yet has had a big say in the overall performance of the team.

He is one of the few leg-spinners who has bowled exceptionally well even during the field restriction overs. Chawla now drifts the ball more and relies on his googlies to cramp the batsmen for room during the early stages of the innings.

He is a very smart operator and hence varies the pace of his deliveries very well. Even to southpaw batsmen. Chawla has a career economy rate of 7.71, which is an excellent figure for a leg spinner who has played from the very first day.

He can contribute with the bat whenever required too, and had hit the winning runs for KKR in their victorious 2014 IPL final. Chawla has been an immensely underrated cricketer to be honest, and yet he tends to grind out useful performances for his team at a consistent rate.