IPL 2016: Who won the battle - Indians or Foreigners?

Another incredible season of the IPL has to come to an end. This time, the ‘Sunrisers Hyderabad clinched the title after defeating RCB in the final. Having lost the first two matches from RCB and KKR respectively, the team came back strongly and won their next three.

From there onwards, they didn’t look back and went on to win the glorious Vivo Indian Premier League 2016 trophy. The team that was led by the Australian batting giant, David Warner, who showed that what good captaincy can give you.

Just like the previous year’s edition had given some interesting stats to remember, this time also the story is exciting. RCB skipper Virat Kohli, who won the orange cap this time, scored 4 centuries and 7 half centuries.

AB de Villiers too was enjoying batting with the Indian legend & played some brilliant knocks. While Chris Gayle was silent in the first half of the season, the big man later fired with 76 in the final against the Sunrisers and 73 against Kings XI in the group stage.

Gautam Gambhir also batted brilliantly throughout the season with the score of 501 to his credit. Let’s see whether Indian talent had an edge over overseas players or they lost the battle.

Batsmen

Most Runs in IPL 2016

Batsman	Matches	Runs	100	50
Virat Kohli	16	973	4	7
David Warner	17	848	0	9
AB De Villiers	16	687	1	6
Gautam Gambhir	15	501	0	5
Shikhar Dhawan	17	501	0	4
Rohit Sharma	17	489	0	5
Ajinkya Rahane	14	480	0	6
Murli Vijay	15	453	0	5
Quinton de kock	12	445	1	3
Suresh Raina	15	399	0	3

7 Indians found themselves in the top 10 list of scoring runs.

Talking about centuries and half centuries, Indians are way too ahead of overseas players this time. With the Indian Test captain, Virat Kohli scoring 4 centuries, there was no one in the frame who could match his ability this time. Similarly in half centuries, 35 half-centuries were scored by the Indians in the list of top 10 batsmen.

Average plays a major role in the game of cricket! Especially in shorter formats of the game. Let’s see who won the battle of average this year (2016):

Batsmen	Average (2016)
Virat Kohli	81.08
Yusuf Pathan	72.20
Chris Morris	65.00
David Warner	60.57
AB de Villiers	52.85
Steven Smith	45.00
Rohit Sharma	44.45
Lokesh Rahul	44.11
Ajinkya Rahane	43.64
MS Dhoni	40.57

Virat & Yusuf were exceptionally well in this year’s IPL. Their respective averages tell the whole story. Warner, ABD and Smith too had taken the responsibility on their shoulders whenever their team was in need.

If we talk about the average runs scored by each Indian and overseas player in a match, one can easily compare their performances.

Batsmen	Runs	Innings	Average
Indians	10385	496	20.93 runs per match by each player
Overseas	7415	333	22.26 runs per match by each player

Talking about the performance from the 1st edition till this year’s, Indians are leading the battle with 51 batsmen who made the cut in the top 10 list. While overseas players are not very far away with 39 players in the list to their credit. Let us have a clear look at the stats:

Battle of 9 years (Number of Batsmen in top 10 from Season 1)

Year	Indians	Overseas
2008	5	5
2009	3	7
2010	7	3
2011	6	4
2012	8	2
2013	7	3
2014	4	6
2015	4	6
2016	7	3
Total	51	39

Bowlers

While Mitchell McClenaghan was leading the table in the first half, it was Bhuvneshwar Kumar who came back strongly & became the leading wicket-taker this time. The Indian pacer who lost his rhythm for a while is back now with more speed and swing. Take a look at the table of most wickets in IPL 2016:

Most Wickets In IPL 2016

Bowler	Wickets	Matches	Economy
Bhuvneshwar Kumar	23	17	7.42
Yuzvendra Chahal	21	13	8.15
Shane Watson	20	16	8.58
Dhawal Kulkarni	18	14	7.42
Mustafizur Rahman	17	16	6.90
Mitchell McClenaghan	17	14	8.17

While Bhuvneshwar Kumar won the purple cap in the season, the young leggie Yuzvendra Chahal too impressed everyone. Because of his performance, he was even selected in the team for the Zimbabwe tour.

If we look at the economy rates of the bowlers, Indian bowlers again have an edge over the foreigners. Bhuvi was not only the pick of the bowlers but he also bowled with an economy of 7.42.

The stats always say something! No doubt, the top Indian bowlers of the tournament have done really well but it’s important to look at the number of overs bowlers (Indians & Overseas) bowled in the tournament. It will give us a clear picture.

Bowlers	Number Of Overs	Wickets	Average
Indians	1410.4 overs	339 Wickets	4.16 wicket per match
Overseas	842.3 overs	252 Wickets	3.34 wicket per match

By the stats, one will say that Indians have an edge over the overseas players in average wickets but we cannot forget that one can team can play with only 4 overseas players maximum. According to that, the overseas players had a very good average.

On the other side, the bowlers too enjoyed a lot in all the editions. Here also, the battle is interesting as 50 Indians are in the top 10 list from the beginning of the IPL. While 40 Overseas players made a cut to the list. Have a look at them in the table:

Battle of 9 years (Number of Bowlers in top 10 from Season 1)

Year	Indians	Overseas
2008	5	5
2009	7	3
2010	6	4
2011	6	4
2012	5	5
2013	4	6
2014	7	3
2015	5	5
2016	5	5
Total	50	40

Now, taking 3 wickets and spending 50 runs in IPL can’t be a good performance! But spending 16 runs in 4 overs with an economy of 4 is a champion example of T20 bowling. This year the table can surprise you! Have a look!

Bowler	Economy Rate
Sachin Baby (Bowled in only 2 innings)	4.79
Mitchell Marsh (Bowled in only 3 innings)	5.00
Yusuf Pathan (Bowled in only 4 innings)	5.50
John Hastings (Bowled in only 2 innings)	5.55
Chris Gayle (Bowled in only 4 innings)	6.30
Adam Zampa	6.76
Mustafizur Rahman	6.90
Chris Morris	7.00
Sunil Narine	7.09
Vinay Kumar (Bowled in only 3 innings)	7.11

We cannot say Sachin Baby was the best bowler of the season as he only bowled in 2 innings. Similarly, with Mitchell Marsh, John Hastings, Yusuf Pathan and Chris Gayle as they didn’t bowl much. Zampa & Mustafizur really impressed everyone in this season. Economically, here, overseas are better than Indians.

Clearly, Indians ruled over the overseas players in IPL but the outsiders were good in all the departments keeping in mind that only 4 are allowed per side during the match. Another good news for all the cricket fans is that they will get to see much more younger talent in the near future.