IPL: Top 5 forgotten heroes

The trend of one-season wonders emerging out of the blue only to fade away soon after has been one of the chief reasons behind all the critical bashing the IPL ever since its inception. However, among the plethora of Fools Gold, lay a handful of genuine performers whose sustained brilliance across seasons shot their prices up during auctions and made them inevitable faction of their respective franchises.However, these laudable cricketers were gradually sidelined by newcomers from the domestic circuit as the franchise owners decided to opt for younger legs on the field. Not making the headlines regularly in the Ranji season didnt help either. As an obvious consequence, these yesteryear heroes were overlooked by team owners and forgotten by fans and followers soon enough.Here we take a look at the top five players whose heroics helped their teams to glory until they went out of contention and were subsequently washed out of public memory.

#5 Siddharth Trivedi

In 2008, Rajasthan Royals skipper Shane Warne was all praise of a little known 25-year-old fast bowler from Gujarat who happened to bowl with a slingy action, yet could be sharp and accurate in his line. A year later, this fast bowler’s name was on the lips of every cricketing pundit looking for alternatives in the Indian bowling line-up. As destiny would have it, this right-arm bowler never really earned a national call-up despite being agonizingly close many a times.

Siddharth Trivedi struck gold in the inaugural season of the IPL, pairing up with Sohail Tanvir for the Royals with a number of impact making performances that helped his team to glory. He continued to pull off decent-looking numbers across seasons and achieved best match figures of 4/25 in 2012.

After an unremarkable 2013 campaign, Trivedi lost color and went out of contention. He also admitted taking money from bookies during the 2013 IPL scandal.

#4 Tirumalasetti Suman

Better known as T Suman or simply Suman, this right-handed batsman from Hyderabad had been catching eyes with his aggressive approach to the game ever since his Under-19 days. Of late, he has been an integral part of the Hyderabad T20 squad in the domestic circuit.

Idolizing Damien Martyn, Suman groomed himself as a middle-order batsman who could bowl some off-spin if the need arises. This move paid rich dividends in the 2009 IPL season where he bagged 5 scalps in addition to his consistency at No. 3 for the Deccan Chargers. 2010 saw him harvest 307 runs from 14 matches with 2 half-centuries and five unbeaten innings.

Opportunities, however, dried up in the following seasons as he got only 17 matches in the next three years. Pune Warriors India bought him in 2013 only to leave him high and dry a year later when the franchise dissolved under controversial circumstances.

#3 Venugopal Rao

After being in and out of the Indian team for around a year in the 2005-06 season when captain Sourav Ganguly was suspended, Venugopal Rao was back to doing the hard yards in the domestic circuit having managed no more than a single half-century against Pakistan in 16 ODIs.

In the 2008 IPL, however, he was signed up by the Deccan Chargers and went on to plunder 288 runs in 11 matches at an average of 36.00. He struck a magnificent 42-ball-unbeaten-71 against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, which remains his highest score in IPL.

Rao struggled to thrive as a finisher in the next two seasons but made up for lost time in 2011 in Delhi colors. Averaging 28.00 in 14 matches at a strike rate of 120.00, courtesy 30 boundaries and 13 sixes, Rao emerged as the second-highest run-scorer for the team in that season. An unhappening 2013 and a timid 2014 for the Sunrisers Hyderabad meant he was slowly but surely fading into oblivion.

#2 Munaf Patel

As a medium-pacer from Gujarat, Munaf Patel has had to deal with his fair share of problems in order to make it to the big stage. Once he did, injuries began to plague his career, as a result of which he lost his pace and was reduced to a pedestrian right-arm bowler prone to getting bashed across the field.

But this wasn’t the way it always used to be. Turning up for Rajasthan in 2008, Munaf grabbed 14 wickets in 15 matches with a best of 3/17. After Mumbai Indians signed him up at the 2011 IPL Players Auction, the cunning swing bowler conquered his first five-for in the IPL against Kings XI Punjab en route to finishing the season with 22 scalps in 15 matches at an average of 16.27.

However, Munaf failed to carry on his good work as his economy continued to soar in the following seasons. With youngsters flooding the Mumbai domestic circuit, Munaf was easily replaced after a meek 2013 campaign that saw him receive only 4 opportunities to make a mark, in 3 of which he returned wicketless.

#1 RP Singh

Hailing from a small city in Uttar Pradesh, Rudra Pratap Singh raised eyebrows on his Test debut against Pakistan in 2006 where he emerged as the Man of the Match. Essentially a left-arm medium pacer with a tidy run-up and follow-through, Singh’s art lay in his ability to trouble the batsmen by getting the cherry to move both ways.

He was one of the pillars of the Deccan Chargers’ IPL triumph in 2009, winning the Purple Cap with 23 wickets in 16 matches at an average of 18.13 and economy of just below 7.00. He continued to perform consistently and grabbed another 4-wicket-haul in 2011 in a losing cause against Kings XI Punjab, playing for Kochi Tuskers Kerala to add to his 4/22 in 2009 for the now-defunct Hyderabad outfit.

With 87 wickets in 78 IPL games, RP Singh sits comfortably at 8 in the list of most wickets taken in the IPL. He was swooped up by the Mumbai Indians at the IPL Player Auctions in 2012 only to be released ahead of the 2013 season when Royal Challengers Bangalore signed him up for US$ 400,000. He was released in 2014 and went unsold in 2015 as well.