Like every season, the tenth edition of the Indian Premier League also unearthed many talents that had the viewers in awe. The likes of Rishabh Pant, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Basil Thampi, Siddharth Kaul among the others rose to prominence and overshadowed the performances of some of the star players who were expected to perform well.
While some big buys failed to live up to their price tag, some pre-tournament favourites ended up as being the wooden-spooners of the season.
Most of the major disappointments came from Royal Challengers Bangalore camp which promised to deliver the entertainment it does every year. Here’s a list of five players who disappointed us in IPL 10.
#1 Chris Gayle
The swashbuckling batsman’s repeated failure throughout the tournament came as a shocker. Gayle, a force to reckon with in the T20 format, has been the star attraction in the IPL. But we didn’t witness any Gayle storms this year.
He reached the mega 10,000-run mark during the tourney, but consistency eluded the West Indies batsman. Appearing in nine out of RCB’s 14 league games, Gayle scored only 200 runs at a strike-rate of 123. A man known to hit the ball out of the park, got out for a duck in two consecutive innings.
He could manage only a single half century and was not even close to the levels expected of him.
#2 Ab de Villiers
Ab de Villiers is definitely not a name one would expect to see on any such list but circumstances in the RCB camp were such that the legendary South African batsman’s performance was highly disappointing.
After missing RCB’s first two IPL 10 games due to a back injury, ABD fired an unbeaten 89 against Kings XI Punjab in his IPL opener. But after that, all his innings were poor and he didn’t get another half-century. In the nine league games he played, de Villiers scored a total of 216 runs at 133.
For now, the batsman will be looking to bring laurels to South Africa by performing well in the Champions Trophy.
#3 Karun Nair
The 300-run maker for India could not live up to his expectations in IPL 10. Nair scored 281 runs from 14 games at an average of 21.61.
His highest score was 64 and had a strike rate of 124.33. He led DD in the absence of Zaheer Khan, but apart from his solitary half-century, he could hardly be of any contribution to Delhi. Nair was continuously backed by team mentor Rahul Dravid, and if not for him, he would have been dropped quite early in the tournament.
Nair will be looking to improve upon his average of 21 next year round.
#4 Ishant Sharma
Ishant Sharma went unsold at the auction in February because of a high base price, but that was not shocking given his meagre returns in limited-overs cricket and tendency to leak runs at an alarming rate. Sharma was picked by Kings XI Punjab as a replacement for Murali Vijay for the same amount – a whopping Rs 2 crore.
A Test specialist who has been one of India’s leading bowlers in red ball cricket, Ishant’s performance for Punjab this season was too dismal. He got to play only six games this season but besides that fact, he picked up no wicket and gave away 179 runs in 18 overs.
#5 James Faulkner
Australian all-rounder James Faulkner has long been regarded as one of the best ODI players in the world, but in recent years it seems that the left-armer’s tricks have been worked out. Dwayne Bravo’s injury opened the doors for Faulkner, and Gujarat would have hoped the Australian could fill the all-rounder's slot.
However, nothing of that sort happened. Faulkner took only six wickets in eight matches with an economy rate just under 10 runs an over. His batting was just as bad as his bowling, he contributed just 54 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 94.73.
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