IPL mid-terms – South African stars ranked

Apologies for the confusion earlier. Here’s your content with only syntax and grammar corrections, and a consistent statistical layout maintained throughout: With the IPL at the halfway point, we thought we’d shamelessly steal from Fox Cricket and give South Africans in the IPL their mid-term grades. Like most classes, grading will be on a curve.…

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April 23, 2024

5 minutes

Anrich Nortje, Faf du Plessis, Kagiso Rabada, Nandre Burger, Quinton de Kock

Apologies for the confusion earlier. Here’s your content with only syntax and grammar corrections, and a consistent statistical layout maintained throughout:

With the IPL at the halfway point, we thought we’d shamelessly steal from Fox Cricket and give South Africans in the IPL their mid-term grades. Like most classes, grading will be on a curve. Bowling figures that might have been a fail in the 2022 IPL season may indeed be graded as a pass with the scoring inflation on display. So without further ado, let’s get to it.

Heinrich Klaasen – A+

Matches: 7
Runs: 268
Average: 53.60
Strike Rate: 198.52
50s: 3

Given the scoring inflation on display in the 2024 IPL, I think it’s fair to say that Jasprit Bumrah has been the best player in the IPL. But there can be no doubt, none at all, that Klaasen has been the most consistently destructive player in the whole competition. So great is the threat he poses, that he completely flummoxed the Mumbai Indians while he wasn’t even batting. The Mumbai Indians were so afraid of his power and devastation, that they kept their best bowler, Bumrah, out of the attack while Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma were running rampant. It’s not just the tape, though. The numbers have been astonishing. The rule of thumb is that your strike rate and average in T20 cricket needs to be in excess of 175 to be considered a good player. If you’re combining for 200, then you are having an outstanding run. Well, Klaasen is combining for 250! He’s hit 26 sixes, at just over a six every five deliveries. Combine that with some fine glovework, which peaked at him effecting a stumping off a 140kph delivery, and he’s clearly passing with distinction.

Tristan Stubbs – A

Matches: 8
Runs: 199
Average: 49.75
Strike Rate: 180.9
50s: 2

It’s been a coming-of-age tournament for Stubbs. Having made his Test debut earlier this year, he’s also now the main man on one of the premier IPL teams in the world. His 25-ball 71 was a glimpse into what he is capable of when the mood hits. The move from Mumbai to Delhi has undoubtedly been good for the wunderkind. Three scores in excess of 40 in the seven matches he’s batted show that he’s beginning to more consistently string together good performances.

Aiden Markram – B+

Matches: 7
Runs: 160
Average: 32
Strike Rate: 135.59
50s: 1

Possibly a generous grade, but Markram is the fulcrum of the most destructive batting lineup in the tournament. Scored a very well-made half-century against Chennai Super Kings to help ease the Sunrisers to a convincing victory when it looked like the ship might have been teetering. Has yet to quite explode as much as he would have liked, but has three scores over 30 in seven innings.

Kagiso Rabada – B

Matches: 8
Wickets: 10
Average: 27.3
Economy Rate: 8.53

The 2020 Purple Cap winner has not quite been the wicket-taking machine he was in previous editions. Indeed, with only 10 wickets at the halfway point, this has, from a wicket-taking perspective, been one of the poorer IPL tournaments for the South African. That said, though, with the advent of the Super Sub, wickets probably don’t mean what they once did. An economy rate of 8.35 in a tournament where the average run-rate has been 9.49 is outstanding for a man who makes his money bowling in the power plays and the death.

Gerald Coetzee – B

Matches: 7
Wickets: 12
Average: 21.91
Economy Rate: 9.92

The young pace merchant has probably been more expensive than he’d like, but in his defense, he’s been bowling for a Mumbai Indians team in absolute turmoil. Going at nearly two wickets a game in a tournament where you’re basically exclusively facing batsmen due to the super sub rule can’t be all bad, surely?

Nandre Burger – B-

Matches: 4
Wickets: 6
Average: 20.66
Economy Rate: 8.85

Burger has probably played to the level of a B+ or maybe even A-. A fantastic average and decent economy rate for the standard of the day, he’s been downgraded by the fact that he’s only played half of Rajasthan’s available matches. Best ability is availability and all that.

Faf du Plessis – B-

Matches: 8
Runs: 239
Average: 29.88
Strike Rate: 152.23
50s: 2

A reasonably successful spell with the bat, du Plessis has not quite hit the heights of 2023, where he scored over 700 runs. Still, though, he and Kohli have made for a formidable, if slightly outdated, opening batting lineup. It’s a source of much debate in the media whether they should both be batting at the top of the order together, as they seem to get the Royal Challengers off to the starts that some teams with less established batsmen. Also gets downgraded for RCB being quite honestly an atrocious team under his captaincy.

Quinton de Kock – B-

Matches: 7
Runs: 228
Average: 32.57
Strike Rate: 136.52
50s: 3

A strange tournament for de Kock, he’s had a few good innings, but in a tournament where multiple players have scored centuries at the top of the order, de Kock has seemingly lacked the explosiveness of his fellow openers. He’s not quite made up for it with sheer weight of runs. Will be hoping to explode harder in the second half of the season.

David Miller – D-

Matches: 5
Runs: 83
Average: 20.75
Strike Rate: 125.76
50s: 0

A stop-start season for South Africa’s most tenured international cricketer. Between injuries and a lack of form, there really has not been much to write about. Will be looking to jump-start his season, with the World Cup six weeks away.

Anrich Nortje – F

Matches: 5
Wickets: 6
Average: 41
Economy Rate: 12.95

In his comeback from an injury that kept him out of action for over six months, Nortje has looked completely out of sorts. His pace is still up there, but instead of the extreme pace he showed pre-injury (his over against Jonny Bairstow in the first Test vs England in 2022 was the fastest over ever bowled in England), he’s just been very fast. His death bowling has been atrocious – he’s currently got an economy rate of 20.6 in the death. Even accounting for scoring inflation, this has been an all-time bad display of death bowling. If it wasn’t for the fact that Mitchell Starc was somehow worse at like three times the cost, this would have been a bigger story.

Not rated due to a lack of matches: