A great tournament for captains, a poor one for spinners

41-19 Win-loss record of teams chasing in this IPL. This is the first season where the teams batting second won more than twice the number of matches than teams batting first. The previous best season for chasing sides was 2014, when the win-loss ratio was 1.681, compared to 2.157 this year.

81.67 Percentage of matches in which teams elected to field after winning the toss in this IPL, higher than any of the previous seasons. IPL 2014 had 68.33%, the previous best. Of 60 matches this season, teams chose to field in 49. In the remaining 11 games, a team opting to bat won only twice. Sunrisers Hyderabad were the only team to win after choosing to bat, beating Rising Pune Supergiants in the league stage and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the final.

28.36 Average runs scored per wicket in this IPL, the best among all nine seasons. The average was 26.72 last season and 28.18 in 2014. The overall run rate of 8.31 in this IPL was the second best; IPL 2015 had 8.37.

0 Previous instances of a team topping the league stage with a negative net run rate. Gujarat Lions finished first with a NRR of -0.374. Their NRR was also the worst for a team finishing in the top four across all seasons.

45.18 Batting average of captains in this IPL. The next best in previous seasons was 33.93 in 2015. They also had the highest strike rate (137.64), and hit the most 50+ scores (38) and sixes (124). They scored 21.88% of all runs scored by batsmen this season. Four of the top six run-getters were captains.

34.40 Average of opening batsmen in this IPL, the highest for any season. Their strike rate of 133.54 is also the best. IPL 2015 was the only other season in which openers averaged more than 30 - 31.40. Of the nine batsmen who scored over 400 runs this season, eight were openers.

40.57 Bowling average of left-arm spinners in this IPL, the poorest in all seasons. The previous low was in the first season (35.32), when only 108 overs were bowled by left-arm spinners compared to 320 overs this season. The only left-arm spinner to take more than 10 wickets this season was Axar Patel, who took 13 wickets including the only hat-trick of IPL 2016. The average of all spinners (34.47) was also the worst in any season, beating 31.35 in 2012.

973 Virat Kohli's aggregate in IPL 2016, the highest not only in the IPL but in any T20 tournament. Both Kohli and David Warner, who scored 848 runs, broke the previous record of 733 held by Chris Gayle (IPL 2012) and Michael Hussey (IPL 2013).

468 Runs scored by Warner while chasing in this IPL, the most in a single season. He went past Robin Uthappa's 457 runs in 2014.

687 Runs scored by AB de Villiers in this IPL, the most by a non-opener in a season. The previous highest was 578 by Kohli in 2013. De Villiers averaged 52.84 and had a strike rate of 168.79. Of his tally this season, 683 runs came at No. 3. The next highest run-getter at No.3 in this IPL was Suresh Raina, who scored 375. The average of the No.3 batsmen for seven teams, apart from Royal Challengers, was only 27.39 compared to 56.53 for Royal Challengers.

1 Number of spinners who featured in the top ten wicket-takers in this IPL. Legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal was the second highest wicket-taker in IPL 2016 with 21 wickets. He has been the highest wicket-taker for Royal Challengers in successive seasons - 23 wickets in 2015 and 21 this season - and is the only uncapped India player with 20 or more wickets in two IPL seasons.

13 Wickets by the Purple Cap-winner Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the end overs (16th to 20th) - joint highest with Shane Watson this season. Bhuvneshwar took 10 wickets in the Powerplays and no wickets in the three overs he bowled in the middle period, finishing with 23 wickets.

14 Wickets taken by Dhawal Kulkarni in the Powerplays, the most in this IPL. Across all seasons, only two bowlers have more wickets in the Powerplays - Mitchell Johnson (16) and Mohit Sharma (15), both in 2013. Mustafizur Rahman had the best economy rate - 4.93 - in the Powerplays this season among those who bowled at least 15 overs.