IPL 2020: Will these CPL 2020 stars be able to repeat their success in the IPL?

All. 8 teams are gearing up for the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2020) which is slated to get underway in a week’s time. While the teams are already busy formulating the penultimate plans, they are still waiting on some of their foreign players to reach UAE, who are currently engaged in other commitments.

While England and Australia currently ensued in a bilateral series, there’s a hots of Caribbean and top international players who plied their trade in the recently concluded CPL 2020.

Let’s take a look at the team-wise performance of the IPL bound players who played in CPL 2020:

1. Delhi Capitals

Shimron Hetmyer

The fourth-highest run-scorer in CPL 2020, Hetmyer, finished with three half-centuries. Batting at the crucial No. 3 position, he was early to the crease in most of the games. He started off with two successive fifties, and then came up with important knocks of 56* and 32* towards the second-half of the competition to help his side through to the semifinal. A duck in the semifinal loss to Zouks meant that Hetmyer finished with an average of 33.37.

Sandeep Lamichhane

The Nepal legspinner pinned down the opposition in the middle overs; his overall economy rate of 5.27 was the fourth-best among bowlers who had bowled at least 20 overs this season behind Narine, Chase and Nabi.

Keemo Paul
The pitches in Trinidad weren’t conducive to pace, but Paul and Kesrick Williams were among the few West Indies seamers who did fairly well. Paul picked up nine wickets in ten matches at an economy rate of 7.32, with his 4 for 19 against Patriots being the third-best figures this season.

2. Kings XI Punjab

Sheldon Cottrell

Like most West Indies quicks, Cottrell didn’t pose enough wicket-taking threat and managed just five strikes in seven games as the Patriots fell away swiftly. He also conceded more than eight an over.

Mujeeb Ur Rahman (Jamaica Tallawahs)

It’s little surprise that Mujeeb finished with a rich haul of wickets. His variations foxed the batsmen, who were unable to pick him, resulting in an economy rate of just 5.29, despite bowling majorly in the powerplay, to return 16 wickets. Together with Sandeep Lamichhane, the pair was instrumental in the Tallawahs reaching the knockouts where they were ousted by the Knight Riders. He picked up at least one wicket in eight out of the 11 games he featured in, even being named Man of the Match for his 3-11 against the Guyana Amazon Warriors in his four overs.

Nicholas Pooran

In a tournament dominated by spin and slower bowlers, Pooran produced the only hundred, which came off a mere 45 balls at a strike rate of 222.22. This was Pooran’s maiden T20 hundred and it had his mentor and TKR captain Kieron Pollard posting this on Instagram: “keep aiming for the stars and continue on that journey @nicholaspooran . Many more to come in this format an also the other TWO formats.”

3. Rajasthan Royals

Oshane Thomas:

The West Indies quick sprayed the ball around and was taken for 78 runs in seven overs. He played just three matches and warmed the bench for eight.

4. Royal Challengers Bangalore

No Royal Challengers Bangalore player was part of CPL 2020.

5. Sunrisers Hyderabad

Mohammad Nabi (St Lucia Zouks)

Nabi has easily stood head and shoulders above most with his all-round performances throughout the league. His quickfire cameos lower down the order, scoring 154 runs in 9 innings, while also taking 12 wickets has been instrumental in his side making the finals. On surfaces suiting him, Nabi has strangled teams in the powerplay – his economy rate of 5.08 a reflection of that. He picked the only five-wicket haul in the tournament against the Patriots. Nabi’s CPL was supposed to be cut short with the start of the Shpageeza T20 League. However, the Afghanistan Cricket Board has allowed the six players currently part of the CPL to continue on until the conclusion, much to the relief of the Zouks.

Rashid Khan The 21-year-old legspinner passed 300 T20 wickets during this season, but most sides chose simply to play out his four overs. Khan came away with 11 wickets in 10 matches while conceding 6.85 runs an over. He had his moments with the bat, too, although he was dismissed for a golden duck in his last CPL innings, while promoted to No. 3.

Fabian Allen: The power-hitting allrounder missed his flight from Jamaica to Barbados, and was subsequently ruled out of the league. His unavailability coincided with the Patriots’ sharp decline. He has, however, already linked up with the Sunrisers in the UAE.

6. Kolkata Knight Riders

Sunil Narine

The spinner and opening batsman missed seven matches for TKR this year because of kidney stones and injury. However, he did start the tournament in grand fashion with back-to-back half-centuries at the top, and also spun the ball both ways with a reworked action, hiding the ball behind his back during his run-up.

Andre Russell

Three fifties, 200-plus runs and finishing unbeaten three times in eight innings, with a strike rate of more than 140 – Russell had a good tournament even though his team went without a win in their last five games, with the last one being a semifinal exit against the mighty Trinbago Knight Riders. All of Russell’s fifties went in vain but he stood tall for his team in a bowler-friendly CPL, showcasing aggression and calmness in equal measure.

Chris Green

In the absence of Shoaib Malik, Green took charge of the Amazon Warriors and led them to the semi-finals. He came into the tournament with a reworked action, but was his usual thrifty self, particularly with the new ball, giving up runs at only 5.68. His control came to the fore during a stellar spell of 4-2-3-1 against the Tridents, and he said he was confident with his new action and rhythm heading into his first IPL season.

7. Chennai Super Kings

Dwayne Bravo

The might of TKR’s batting meant Darren Bravo got to bat in only nine innings of the 12 games that he was part of. But when he did get the chance, he made them count. He followed up on his half-century in his last game against the Zouks to carry on from there in the final – against the Zouks – to remain unbeaten on 58 to carry his side home en route an unbeaten 138-run stand with SImmons. Together, they ensured the Zouks didn’t have a chance. In his last seven innings, Bravo had only one single-digit score, with four unbeaten knocks, finishing the tournament eventually as the third-highest run-getter with the highest average in the tournament of 59.40. His unbeaten 47-ball 58 – his highest this season – in the final took his tally to 297 runs for the season.

Mitchell Santner

In his first CPL, the New Zealand spin-bowling allrounder stood out amid the Tridents’ rubble, proving once again that fingerspinners can be as effective as wristspinners in white-ball cricket. He claimed six wickets in nine matches – he missed one game because of a niggle – at an economy rate of 5.59. Santner also doubled up as the Tridents’ finisher, hitting nine fours and five sixes down the order across eight innings.

Imran Tahir: Despite being the highest wicket-taker in IPL 2019 it remains to be seen if Tahir starts for the Super Kings this season, considering the wealth of slower bowlers at MS Dhoni’s disposal. However, the 41-year old made a strong case for retaining his overseas slot by collecting 15 wickets at an economy rate of 5.82 in Guyana Amazon Warriors’ run to the semi-finals in CPL 2020. Only Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Scott Kuggeleijn took more wickets than him.

8. Mumbai Indians

Kieron Pollard

Finishing CPL 2020 as the ‘Player of the tournament’ his astute leadership in leading will once again come in handy for the Mumbai Indians franchise.

Pollard came into his own, showcasing glimpses of his repute of the demolition man he’s known to be, when he blazed away to a 28-ball 72 against the Barbados Tridents in a chase of 149, snatching victory out of the jaws of defeat.

He led his unbeaten team from the front to finish with 207 runs in 11 games, averaging a whopping 51.75 with a strike-rate of 204.95, in addition to picking up 8 wickets, four of which came in the final.

Chris Lynn

The Australian opener was at sea against quality spin bowling on sluggish surfaces, and if the UAE pitches offer as much turn as the ones in the Caribbean did, Lynn could be in for a tough time there as well. In the nine innings Lynn batted in this CPL, he only managed 73 runs off 85 balls against the spinners at a strike rate of just over 85, while being dismissed by spin six times.

Sherfane Rutherford

Much like Lynn, Rutherford struggled to adapt to the slow, low pitches both at the Queen’s Park Oval and the Brian Lara Cricket Academy. All told, he scored a mere 39 runs in seven innings at a strike rate of under 80, but his Amazon Warriors captain Chris Green has backed him to return to form in the IPL and other future tournaments.

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