Worst XI of IPL 2015: Yuvraj Singh captains, Virender Sehwag opens

The eighth season of the IPL is finally over and there were plenty of thrills and spills during the 46-day long tournament. Mumbai Indians rebounded from their horrible start to end up as worthy champions but this story isn’t going to be about the successes this season. It is about the failures.

This is a list of the players who played a majority of their team’s matches and made the wrong sort of impact. As you’d expect, Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Daredevils players dominate the side.

Virender Sehwag:

The opening partnership - or the lack of it - for Kings XI Punjab was seen as one of the reasons for their poor season. They tried out a few different combinations with Sehwag, Murali Vijay, Manan Vohra and Wriddhiman Saha. The biggest disappointment in that list would have to the Nawab of Najafgarh. Sehwag, unlike some of the other oldies who had a good year, offered next to nothing at the top of the order for last year’s runners up. He scored 99 runs in his eight innings and 47 of those came in one match against Delhi.

Murali Vijay:

Now to the other half of Punjab’s starting troubles. Though nowhere close to being as ineffective as Sehwag, Vijay constantly struggled to convert his starts into big scores. And when he watches some of his dismissals again on tape, he would be shocked at how soft some of them where. Having moved to a new franchise after a disappointing season with Delhi, Vijay missed out on a big opportunity to get back into India’s limited-overs side.

Suresh Raina:

Chennai’s Mr. Consistent. The man who’s played every single game for CSK. The player who has scored over 400 runs in every season before this. The guy who has won some big matches for his side. So when a player of his caliber, scores a ‘mere’ 374 runs, at his lowest average - 24.93 - and lowest strike rate - 123.02 - in eight seasons, he ends up being the superstar who turns up for the Worst XI. There were none of the fireworks we have come to expect from Raina and when the team needed him most – after Brendon McCullum left – he wasn’t able to deliver.

Yuvraj Singh:

Rs 16 crores of GMR’s money returned them a total of 248 runs at an average of 19.07 and a strike rate of 118.09. For this list, we will ignore the ‘market-driven’ price for Yuvi, like the Delhi management insisted. These are poor numbers for a middle-order batsman who is meant to be the mainstay of his side. There were glimpses of his best, no doubt but for that money, the team will have wanted more than glimpses. He might have slept through the IPL auction but his season can only be called a nightmare.

Glenn Maxwell

The man who is called the Big Show was, to put it mildly, a complete no-show in the IPL this year. 145 runs in his 11 innings came at a strike rate of 130. More than these numbers, the shoulders that drooped towards the end of the season would have bothered Sanjay Bangar. The shots he got out to were reckless and symptomatic of a disinterested star, who couldn’t wait to go back.

Angelo Matthews:

The auction-overhaul undertaken by Gary Kirsten was predominantly focused on the amount Delhi spent on Yuvraj. Though Mathews was the third most expensive player of the auction, he was seen as a very shrewd buy. But the Sri Lankan captain showed his big-hitting capabilities only in patches. He faced a mere 104 balls in the 11 games he played, as Delhi struggled to find the right batting order. Did nothing noteworthy with the ball either.

James Faulkner

Faulkner came into this IPL having won the Man-of-the-Match award in the World Cup final. So, perhaps, his focus wasn’t really on winning the IPL. But for the Rajasthan Royals, their prized all-rounder misfiring was a big blow. Not dissimilar to Glenn Maxwell in terms of not having the right focus, Faulkner went for over 9.5 runs per over and scored fewer than 150 runs this season.

Dinesh Karthik:

The Tamil Nadu wicket-keeper is another player who keeps getting picked up by franchises for a high price, but somehow always ends up performing below par. Playing for his fourth franchise, Karthik did not do enough with the bat to justify his selection for RCB. With such a prolific, top-heavy batting lineup like the one Bangalore has, Karthik had to come good in the games where the Big Three didn’t click. He did not.

Mitchell Johnson:

Among a season of many lowlights – where Mitch took just nine wickets from nine innings – what would have hurt his ego most was getting carted around the ground by the diminutive Parthiv Patel. This was the same Johnson who bullied and bounced out Yuvraj and Raina in Australia’s last India tour. As if his bowling wasn’t bad enough, he dropped a fair few sitters as well, signs of a player who was mentally exhausted. Unsurprisingly, he requested the franchise to release him early.

Umesh Yadav:

Being the Indian quick in a side that played four and sometimes five spinners in almost every game meant Yadav’s opening bursts were crucial. Though, he did not do too badly in terms of numbers – taking 10 wickets at a strike rate of 24 – Yadav’s accuracy left a lot to be desired. He continues to frustrate Indian fans by bowling a perfectly good yorker and following that with a wide down the leg side. But conceding at nine runs per over isn’t going to cut it.

Sunil Narine:

The only man on this list, perhaps, for whom everyone can have some sympathy. If the uncertainty surrounding his action before the tournament – uncertainty that made KKR shell out money on the mystery ‘Mystery Spinner’ KC. Cariappa - wasn’t enough, the BCCI banned him for an illegal action halfway through the tournament as well.

Narine was rehabilitated a second time picked up four wickets in a nail-biting win against Kings XI. In a later game he bowled Rohit Sharma with an absolute beauty. But that was too little, too late. He was dropped two matches later.