Worth the price?

With the on-field IPL action finally over, it's time to look back at the players selected by the franchises, and check out which ones justified their paycheck. While the performance of some players were worth their cost, certain others failed to live up to the expectations. The tables below look at the cost-performance analysis of major batsmen and bowlers in this season. The last column in the tables is the value index which looks at runs scored or wickets taken per US$10,000. This gives an idea of the value provided to the franchises by the major stars and lesser known players.

Cost vs performance analysis of batsmen in IPL 2010

Player name	Team	Cost in $	Matches played	Runs scored	Average	Strike rate	100	50	Value Index-Runs scored per 10000$
MS Dhoni	Chennai	1500000	13	287	31.88	136.66	0	2	1.91
ML Hayden	Chennai	375000	16	346	21.62	124.01	0	1	9.22
M Vijay	Chennai	50000	15	458	35.23	156.84	1	2	91.6
SK Raina	Chennai	650000	16	520	47.87	142.85	0	4	8.00
AC Gilchrist	Deccan	700000	16	289	18.06	156.21	0	1	4.12
TL Suman	Deccan	30000	14	307	34.11	119.45	0	2	102.33
A Symonds	Deccan	1350000	16	429	30.64	125.80	0	4	1.97
HH Gibbs	Deccan	575000	10	267	26.70	113.61	0	1	4.64
RG Sharma	Deccan	750000	16	404	28.85	133.77	0	3	5.38
G Gambhir	Delhi	725000	11	277	30.77	127.64	0	2	3.82
DA Warner	Delhi	250000	11	282	28.20	147.64	1	1	11.28
V Sehwag	Delhi	833750	14	356	25.42	163.30	0	3	4.26
DPMD Jayawardene	Punjab	475000	13	439	43.90	147.31	0	2	9.24
KC Sangakkara	Punjab	700000	13	357	29.75	138.91	1	1	5.10
Yuvraj Singh	Punjab	1063750	14	255	21.25	128.14	0	0	2.39
SC Ganguly	Kolkata	1092500	14	493	37.92	117.66	0	4	4.51
CH Gayle	Kolkata	800000	9	292	32.44	158.69	0	2	3.65
BB McCullum	Kolkata	700000	5	114	28.50	103.63	0	1	1.63
SR Tendulkar	Mumbai	1121250	15	618	47.53	132.61	0	5	5.51
JP Duminy	Mumbai	950000	7	157	31.40	119.84	0	0	1.62
ST Jayasuriya	Mumbai	975000	4	33	8.25	106.45	0	0	0.33
KA Pollard	Mumbai	750000	14	273	22.75	185.71	0	0	3.64
SS Tiwary	Mumbai	40000	16	419	29.92	135.59	0	3	104.75
YK Pathan	Rajasthan	475000	14	333	27.75	165.67	1	1	7.01
SR Watson	Rajasthan	125000	6	185	37.00	162.28	0	2	14.8
NV Ojha	Rajasthan	30000	14	377	31.41	132.28	0	2	125.67
JH Kallis	Bangalore	900000	16	572	47.66	115.78	0	6	6.35
KP Pietersen	Bangalore	1350000	7	236	59.00	150.31	0	2	1.75
RV Uthappa	Bangalore	800000	16	374	31.16	171.55	0	3	4.67

Cost vs Performance analysis of bowlers in IPL 2010

Player	Team	Cost in $	Matches played	Runs conceded	Wickets taken	Economy rate	Average	Strike rate	Value Index-Wickets taken per 10000$
R Ashwin	Chennai	30000	12	293	13	6.10	22.53	22.1	4.33
DE Bollinger**	Chennai	675000	7	207	12	6.67	17.25	15.5	0.178
M Muralitharan	Chennai	600000	12	329	15	6.85	21.93	19.2	0.25
PP Ojha	Deccan	20000	16	429	21	7.29	20.42	16.8	10.5
A Symonds	Deccan	135000	16	372	12	7.01	31.00	26.5	0.89
KAJ Roach	Deccan	720000	2	80	0	10.00	-	-	0.0
A Mishra	Delhi	30000	14	363	17	6.84	21.35	18.7	5.66
DP Nannes	Delhi	70000	9	224	7	6.55	32.00	29.2	1.00
DL Vettori	Delhi	675000	3	97	2	8.31	48.50	35.00	0.03
PP Chawla	Punjab	400000	14	367	12	7.48	30.58	24.5	0.3
IK Pathan	Punjab	925000	14	426	15	9.19	28.40	18.5	0.16
S Sreesanth	Punjab	625000	6	191	3	10.05	63.33	38.0	0.05
M Kartik	Kolkata	425000	10	253	9	6.48	28.11	26.00	0.21
SE Bond	Kolkata	750000	8	224	9	7.22	24.88	20.6	0.12
I Sharma	Kolkata	950000	7	236	7	9.44	33.71	21.4	0.07
KA Pollard	Mumbai	750000	14	274	15	7.40	18.26	14.8	0.20
Harbhajan Singh	Mumbai	850000	15	377	17	7.04	22.17	18.8	0.20
SK Warne	Rajasthan	450000	14	381	11	7.62	34.63	27.2	0.24
DW Steyn	Bangalore	325000	15	406	15	6.88	27.06	23.6	0.46
A Kumble	Bangalore	500000	16	407	17	6.42	23.94	22.3	0.34
R Vinay Kumar	Bangalore	30000	14	396	16	8.57	24.75	17.3	5.33

** Doug Bollinger replaced Jacob Oram in the Chennai Super KIngs Squad. His price is assumed to be the same as that of Oram's.

Chennai Super Kings made one of the most valuable investments in M Vijay. He was extremely consistent, and scored 458 runs which included one century and two fifties. Suresh Raina vindicated his price as well by scoring more than 500 runs and also winning the Man-of-the-Match award in the final against Mumbai. On the bowling front, R Ashwin performed quite exceptionally for Chennai and the inclusion of Doug Bollinger, who replaced injured New Zealand all-rounder Jacob Oram in the latter half of the tournament, proved to be a masterstroke. T Suman and Pragyan Ojha were the two best investments for Deccan Chargers while their decision to buy Kemar Roach proved to be a huge failure.

Daniel Vettori was unused for a large part of the tournament by Delhi while Punjab's woes were compounded by the poor showing of Yuvraj Singh and Sreesanth. Rajasthan Royals did not have a great tournament but their batting was boosted by the performances of Naman Ojha and Shane Watson. For Kolkata, Murali Kartik was easily their best bowler but Ishant Sharma did not live up to the hype and cost. Kieron Pollard was a great all-round success for Mumbai with his explosive hitting and useful bowling performances throughout. Saurabh Tiwary was an unknown quantity for most viewers, but he was one of the success stories of the tournament for Mumbai Indians. For Royal Challengers Bangalore, Jacques Kallis and Robin Uthappa produced top batting performances and the bowling of Vinay Kumar was also a major factor in the team finishing third.