3 IPL teams with no centurion

IPL- An acronym which was just a name a decade back, is now being termed as the culture of Indian cricket. Started as an ordinary domestic franchise cricket to oppose ICL (Indian Cricket League), it has now become a vital part of an International cricketer's calendar.

According to a report by a global financial advisory firm, the brand value of IPL in 2018 was USD 6.3 billion. In 11 years since its inception, it has transformed into a compelling force, even for many international cricketers who have skipped their international duty for participating in this globally followed franchise tournament.

IPL has given a platform not only for cricketers, but also to many multi-national companies for global recognition through advertisements.

Though many former cricketers are bashing out on franchise cricket due to its detrimental effect on Test cricket, IPL has emerged as a carnival for domestic cricket fans with unstoppable entertainment.

The idea of grouping global stars in a single team was the pivotal part of IPL's success because, watching international cricketers playing together in the same team would be a delight for every follower (for example, Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers combo).

Even the players were happy to get mingled with their counterparts, for an entertaining 2-months period. The cricket fraternity was thankful to IPL when it ended the long fought 'Monkey-gate' feud between Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds during their tenure for Mumbai Indians.

A rare-bizarre feat achieved by 3 franchises in IPL history

In 11 years of IPL cricket, numerous records have been created and broken across various seasons. For an instance, 52 centuries has been scored by various players in IPL till date. Unfortunately, there are 3 franchises which doesn't have a centurion in the history of IPL:

#3 Kochi Tuskers Kerala (2011)

Owned in partnership by big names like Uday Kotak, Shashi Tharoor and T Venkattram Reddy, the franchise from Kerala was part of the only 10-team tournament held in IPL history (2011).

Though Kochi had a star-studded team with players like Ravindra Jadeja, Brendon McCullum, Muttiah Muralitharan and Mahela Jayawardene, they had a pretty ordinary season by claiming 12 points and stood 8th on the points table.

The former New Zealand captain is the highest scorer of the side with 81 runs against Mumbai Indians, which ruined Sachin's maiden IPL century

#2 Gujarat Lions (2016-17)

Suresh Raina was the highest run-scorer for Gujarat Lions

Owned by Keshav Bansal, son of Narendra Bansal, Gujarat Lions was one of the 2 teams which came as a backup for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) during their ban.

Led by the CSK-star Suresh Raina, Gujarat had an amazing campaign during their debut season (2016), reaching the qualifiers as topper of the table. But their lacklustre performance during the 2017 edition led to their downfall to 7th place in the points table.

As expected, the leader of the side (Raina) is the leading run-scorer for the franchise with a high score of 84 in an away-match against Kolkata Knight Riders in 2017.

#1 Pune Warriors India (2011-13)

Sourav Ganguly was captain of the unsuccessful Pune Warriors India side during 2012 edition

The former Indian sponsor, Sahara India Pariwar, was the sole owner of the Pune Warriors India (PWI) team. The former Pune franchise is termed as one of the unluckiest team in the IPL history.

Though Pune had great names like Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Steve Smith during different seasons, their fate during the 3-horrible seasons were the same. Joined in 2011, Pune ended up in 9th, 8th and 7th positions in the points table in subsequent seasons.

In 3 years, PWI played in 46 matches but unfortunately couldn't have a centurion throughout their term in IPL. Jesse Ryder, the classy left-hander from New Zealand is highest run-scorer for PWI with 58-ball 86 against Delhi Daredevils in 2012.