Indian T20 League 2023 Curtain Call

by | May 22, 2023 | Cricket, Indian T20 League, Preview, Uncategorized

70 games and 2 months of grueling action later that included a record-breaking 1066 sixes & 2057 fours, the 16th edition of the Indian T20 League has its Top-4 Gujarat, Chennai, Lucknow and Mumbai. The coming week that sees 2 qualifiers, an eliminator and the finale on Sunday 28th May will give us a new champion. 1 of two seasoned campaigners, a defending champ or a team playing in only its 2nd season ever. Here’s more…

What a season of class T20 cricket this has been. If cricket ever needed a marketing boost, the highlight reel of the 16th edition of the Indian T20 League has it all. A finish worthy of a Bollywood potboiler at the very end. This is it folks! The curtain call on the latest edition of the world’s richest T20 League. And we think it has lived up to its super-hyped billing.

The league stages ended with 3 centuries on Sunday and the most 6s hit overall ever in League history. If we were to label the 2023 edition of the Indian T20 League, we’d go with a “Bollywood Inspired” theme for nothing else than the nail-biting finishes and the blockbuster ending to the league stage that went right down to the wire. A few dramatic rain scenes and a possibility of an anticlimactic washout thrown in at the end helped too.

Gujarat will face Chennai in Qualifier 1 on Tuesday while Lucknow take on Mumbai in the Eliminator in Chennai on Wednesday.

When Saturday came around, there was just 1 team that had qualified for the playoffs and at the end of the day with just 2 games to go on Sunday, 3 teams had booked their spots with 2 sides vying for that last open slot. This has been the closest playoff race in history.

Defending champions Gujarat were the first team to make the 2023 playoffs. On Saturday, Chennai and Lucknow qualified. And on Sunday, while Mumbai and Bangalore went at it on their respective home grounds, Mumbai winning by 8 wickets against Hyderabad in the earlier game, the rains came crashing down at Bengaluru threatening to play spoilsport to a fairy-tale comeback. Well, the rains backed off and Bangalore got down to the job at hand with a 100 from Virat Kohli but Gujrat were too strong in the end and Shubman Gill’s century powered the defending champion’s home.

It was rather fitting that Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill joined Shikhar Dhawan and Jos Buttler for hitting consecutive tons in the League in the 70th and final game of the league stages. This, to round off one of the most exciting playoff races in League history ever.  Kohli’s 7th League century was record-breaking as he surpassed Chris Gayle’s tally of 6 but unfortunately came in a losing cause.

Bangalore’s defeat enabled Mumbai secure the last Playoff spot and hand them their 10th qualification across 16 editions.

Here’s how things ended…

Contests Up in The Lobby! Who Makes Your 11?

Standings

Teams Mat Won Lost Tied NR Pts NRR
Gujarat 14 10 4 0 0 20 +0.809
Chennai 14 8 5 0 1 17 +0.652
Lucknow 14 8 5 0 1 17 +0.284
Mumbai 14 8 6 0 0 16 -0.044
Rajasthan 14 7 7 0 0 14 +0.148
Bangalore 14 7 7 0 0 14 +0.135
Kolkata 14 6 8 0 0 12 -0.239
Punjab 14 6 8 0 0 12 -0.304
Delhi 14 5 9 0 0 10 -0.808
Hyderabad 14 4 10 0 0 8 -0.590

Orange Cap

Player M Inns Runs Avg Sr 4s 6s
1 Faf du Plessis 14 14 730 56.15 153.68 60 36
2 Shubman Gill 14 14 680 56.67 152.47 67 22
3 Virat Kohli 14 14 639 53.25 139.82 65 16
4 Yashasvi Jaiswal 14 14 625 48.08 163.61 82 26
5 Devon Conway 14 13 585 53.18 138.63 69 16
6 David Warner 14 14 516 36.86 131.63 69 10
7 Suryakumar Yadav 14 14 511 42.58 185.14 56 24
8 Ruturaj Gaikwad 14 13 504 42.00 148.24 36 28
9 Rinku Singh 14 14 474 59.25 149.53 31 29
10 Heinrich Klaasen 12 11 448 49.78 177.08 32 25
11 Ishan Kishan 14 14 439 31.36 143.46 51 18
12 Nitish Rana 14 14 413 31.77 140.96 39 20
13 Venkatesh Iyer 14 14 404 28.86 145.85 32 21
14 Glenn Maxwell 14 14 400 33.33 183.49 29 31
15 Jos Buttler 14 14 392 28.00 139.01 42 14

Purple Cap

Player M O B W Avg Runs 4-w 5-w
1 Mohammed Shami 14 55.0 320 24 17.62 423 2 –
2 Rashid Khan 14 56.0 336 24 18.25 438 1 –
3 Yuzvendra Chahal 14 52.5 317 21 20.57 432 3 –
4 Piyush Chawla 14 54.0 324 20 21.10 429 1 –
5 Varun Chakaravarthy 14 52.4 316 20 21.45 429 1 –
6 Tushar Deshpande 14 48.5 293 20 3.25 465 – –
7 Mohammed Siraj 14 50.0 300 19 19.74 375 – –
8 Ravindra Jadeja 14 49.0 294 17 22.06 375 – –
9 Mohit Sharma 11 34.5 209 17 16.71 284 2 –
10 Arshdeep Singh 14 50.5 305 17 29.08 493 1 –
11 Ravi Bishnoi 14 46.3 279 16 22.56 361 – –
12 Bhuvneshwar Kumar 14 51.0 306 16 26.56 425 – 1
13 Matheesha Pathirana 10 38.2 230 15 19.33 290 – –
14 Ravichandran Ashwin 13 49.0 294 14 26.29 368 – –
15 Jason Behrendorff 10 35.0 210 14 24.14 338 – –

Player Updates

–  Suryansh Shedge replaces injured Jaydev Unadkat at Lucknow for the remainder of the League after the left-arm pacer sustained a shoulder injury during training

–  Ben Stokes leaves Chennai ahead of the Playoffs to join up with the English squad before the start of the Ashes.

Let’s take a closer look at the stats from a record-breaking season so far

Highest Scores

Batter Runs Balls Sr Vs 4s 6s
1 Yashasvi Jaiswal 124 62 200.00 Mumbai 16 8
2 Venkatesh Iyer 104 51 203.92 Mumbai 6 9
3 Heinrich Klaasen 104 51 203.92 Bangalore 8 6
4 Shubman Gill 104 52 200.00 Bangalore 5 8
5 Suryakumar Yadav 103 49 210.20 Gujarat 11 6
6 Prabhsimran Singh 103 65 158.46 Delhi 10 6
7 Shubman Gill 101 58 174.14 Hyderabad 13 1
8 Virat Kohli 101 61 165.57 Gujarat 13 1
9 Cameron Green 100 47 212.77 Hyderabad 8 8
10 Harry Brook 100 55 181.82 Kolkata 12 3
11 Virat Kohli 100 63 158.73 Hyderabad 12 3
12 Shikhar Dhawan 99 66 150.00 Hyderabad 12 5
13 Yashasvi Jaiswal 98 47 208.51 Kolkata 12 5
14 Jos Buttler 95 59 161.02 Hyderabad 10 4
15 Liam Livingstone 94 48 195.83 Delhi 5 9

Most 6s

Batter Matches Inns 6s
1 Faf du Plessis 14 14 730 36
2 Shivam Dube 14 12 385 33
3 Glenn Maxwell 14 14 400 31
4 Rinku Singh 14 14 474 29
5 Ruturaj Gaikwad 14 13 504 28
6 Yashasvi Jaiswal 14 14 625 26
7 Marcus Stoinis 14 14 368 26
8 Nicholas Pooran 14 14 358 26
9 Heinrich Klaasen 12 11 448 25
10 Suryakumar Yadav 14 14 511 24
11 Sanju Samson 14 14 362 24
12 Shimron Hetmyer 14 13 299 23
13 Shubman Gill 14 14 680 22
14 Kyle Mayers 12 12 361 22
15 Venkatesh Iyer 14 14 404 21

Most 4s

Batter Matches Inns 6s
1 Yashasvi Jaiswal 14 14 625 82
2 Devon Conway 14 13 585 69
3 David Warner 14 14 516 69
4 Shubman Gill 14 14 680 67
5 Virat Kohli 14 14 639 65
6 Faf du Plessis 14 14 730 60
7 Suryakumar Yadav 14 14 511 56
8 Ishan Kishan 14 14 439 51
9 Shikhar Dhawan 11 11 373 49
10 Jos Buttler 14 14 392 42
11 Nitish Rana 14 14 413 39
12 Prabhsimran Singh 14 14 358 38
13 Wriddhiman Saha 14 14 287 37
14 Ruturaj Gaikwad 14 13 504 36
15 Jason Roy 8 8 285 36