IPL 2024 Impact XI of the season: Travis Head-Sunil Narine as openers, Virat Kohli at 3, Bumrah and Starc with new ball

A fascinating 17th edition of the IPL came to an end on Sunday night with Kolkata Knight Riders lifting the trophy for a third time defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final. There were a number of great performances in the season - both in the league stage and the playoffs. We look at the Team of the Tournament – the highest impact XI of the season. We have selected the team based on the overall impact of a player on the tournament while also giving weightage to performance from specific positions and phases of play. The match situation and the relevance of the contest in which a player performed has also been considered.

The Openers – Travis Head & Sunil Narine

Selecting the opening combination was the most difficult task as there were six outstanding performances at the top of the order this season. However, given the impact they had through the competition and the manner in which they redefined T20 batting in the powerplay, playing a key role in taking their teams to the final, our opening duo are Travis Head and Sunil Narine.

Head smashed 567 runs at a strike rate of 191.5. No batter scored more runs in the powerplay than the Australian left-hander. Narine was the highest impact player of the tournament. He hammered 488 runs at a strike rate of 180.7 while also picking 17 wickets at an exceptional economy rate of 6.7 – the second-best for the season after Jasprit Bumrah.

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It would be blasphemy not to include Virat Kohli in the XI given the season he has had with the bat - thus, we have accommodated him at number 3 - a position from where he has scored a majority of his runs in the IPL and T20I cricket, even though he batted as an opener in this edition.

Unfortunately, three big players missed out - the batter with the highest strike rate (Jake Fraser-McGurk), the most sixes (Abhishek Sharma) and the other half of KKR's opening carnage (Phil Salt).

Virat Kohli – the run-machine at number 3

Virat Kohli is a default selection at number 3 as we could not accommodate him as an opener. Kohli was the highest run-getter of the season with an aggregate of 741 in 15 innings at a strike rate of 154.7 with one hundred and five fifties. He became only the second batter in IPL history after Chris Gayle to aggregate 700-plus runs in a season twice in his career! Kohli unleashed a new destructive avatar of him this season where his scoring rate of 154.7 was the highest it has ever been in a single edition. He was also quick off the blocks with a strike rate of 161 off the first 10 deliveries he faced through the tournament. Kohli was more aggressive against the spinners and his scoring rate of 137.1 against their ilk was his personal-best since 2017!

Riyan Parag – RR’s Mr Consistent at number 4

It was a tough contest between the two best RR batters for the number 4 position but Riyan Parag pipped his skipper Sanju Samson as he was more consistent in the latter half of the tournament when Samson lost a bit of steam. Parag scored 573 runs in just 14 innings at a strike rate of almost 150 in what was a breakthrough season for him at the IPL. He registered four half-centuries and as many as nine 30-plus scores in the tournament.

Venkatesh Iyer vs Rajat Patidar vs Nicholas Pooran for number 5

It was a choice between Venkatesh Iyer, Rajat Patidar and Nicholas Pooran for the number 5 position. Iyer raised his game and produced two match-winning fifties in Qualifier 1 and the Final. However, only one of these was a high impact performance as the final was as good as over after the first innings!

Patidar had a breakthrough season and piled on 395 runs including five fifties at a strike rate of 177.1. He was the best middle-order batter against spin in the tournament hammering the slower bowlers at a rate of 197.

However, our choice for the number 5 position is LSG's Nicholas Pooran. The dashing West Indian left-hander amassed close to 500 runs at a strike rate of 178.2. He hit 36 sixes and was brilliantly consistent, failing just three times in the tournament. Pooran provided the impetus in the middle-order, more often than not after a sluggish performance from the LSG top 4.

Russell & Klaasen – the finishers at number 6 & 7

The two best finishers in white ball cricket – one in the twilight of his career and the other just on the verge of conquering the world – feature in at number 6 and 7 for us in the XI. Andre Russell had a strike rate of 185 in the tournament and is one of the most feared batters in limited-overs’ history. No one has a higher scoring rate than him in the history of the IPL! Russell also returned with 19 wickets at a brilliant strike rate of 15.2 while picking three wickets in the final.

Klaasen was the destroyer for SRH in the middle-order and smashed 479 runs at a strike rate of 171 including 38 hits over the fence this season. The South African superstar was brilliant against spin and had a strike rate of 182.1 against the slower bowlers in the tournament.

Bumrah, Starc, Natarajan & Chakravarthy – the four bowlers

Jasprit Bumrah was the best fast bowler of the tournament in a team which had its worst season ever. The Indian ace speedster bagged 20 wickets at an unbelievable economy rate of 6.48! He was the most restrictive bowler in the powerplay and at the death. Bumrah picked 3+ wickets four times and had an economy of less than 7 on as many as 9 occasions in the tournament!

No spinner picked more wickets than Varun Chakravarthy who raised his game at the business end this season. The leg spinner returned with 13 wickets in the last seven matches at an incredible average of 9.2, strike rate of 9.7 and economy of 5.7!

T Natarajan was amongst the best at the death picking 11 wickets in the last four overs. He was also the leading wicket-taker for SRH. Mitchell Starc displayed his class by producing two back to back Player of the Match performances in the Qualifier 1 and the Final after an erratic season in the league stages. He struck in his very first over of the innings getting rid of one SRH opener in both the matches – giving the early ascendancy and control to KKR. No player had achieved the feat in two playoff matches in the same season in the history of the IPL!

So, here we have it. The highest impact XI of IPL 2024 – the team of the tournament. Not surprisingly, the team has four players from KKR and three from SRH.

THE HIGHEST IMPACT XI OF IPL 2024

1. TRAVIS HEAD - SRH

2. SUNIL NARINE - KKR

3. VIRAT KOHLI - RCB

4. RIYAN PARAG - RR

5. NICHOLAS POORAN - LSG

6. HEINRICH KLAASEN - SRH

7. ANDRE RUSSELL - KKR

8. MITCHELL STARC – KKR

9. JASPRIT BUMRAH - MI

10. VARUN CHAKRAVARTHY - KKR

11. T NATARAJAN - SRH