IPL 2018: 11 cricketers who had a forgettable IPL

2) Colin Munro (5 innings, 63 runs, S/R of 153.65)

Colin Munro: Got done in by an Aussie coach in IPL 2018

To be fair to Munro, he didn’t get continuous chances to stake a claim for the opening spot. But it might have been foolish on his part to expect fairness from an Aussie coach. Poor old Kiwi. The gaffer did him in quite nicely, especially considering Glenn Maxwell got picked for 12 games.

3) Ajinkya Rahane (14 innings, 370 runs, S/R of 118.21)

Only if Virat Kohli could also pass his ball-striking abilities to Ajinkya Rahane.

On a cursory glance, going strictly by the number of runs, it doesn’t seem that Rahane had a terrible season. But the bottom-line is that his S/R cost his team matches. He makes it as the number 3 batsman in this line-up, given his miserable existence at that spot in this IPL. In his five innings as a number 3 batsman, he scored 90 runs at a gut-numbing S/R of 101. Alongwith an almost equally slow D’Arcy Short as his partner, they were the only thing more painful than the Jaipur heat at its peak.

4) Yuvraj Singh (6 innings, 65 runs, S/R of 89.04)

Nope. Not happening.

The IPL has shown historically that stars who play for their local IPL franchises don’t necessarily prosper. Sourav Ganguly was a disaster for KKR, Rahul Dravid failed to achieve anything for RCB, Ravindra Jadeja fiddled around with Gujarat Lions, Lokesh Rahul turned into a run-machine after leaving RCB. It was surprising that the KXIP team management didn’t look at this empirical and definite scientific data to make their auction choice. Instead, they chose to look at actual cricket numbers from the last two years and still came up with the decision to buy Yuvraj. It is a pity, really. A great player coming to the end of his career, and one who is being asked to submit by the game itself. For all those who believe in fairy tales in cricket, Yuvraj showed there’s no such thing beyond a point. For a man who once scored six sixes in an over, he, on an average couldn’t even score six runs an over this IPL. Life is hard, time to move on.