One-man army
Chris Gayle ended up as the leading run-scorer in the round-robin stages of the IPL by a long way - his tally of 733 was 164 runs more than that of Shikhar Dhawan, who was second with 569. In all, Gayle scored 31% of his team's total bat runs during the tournament - Royal Challengers Bangalore scored the second-highest number of runs in their league games, with 2351. Gayle's stats in wins was especially awesome: his scores in the seven matches that Royal Challengers won were 81, 87, 4, 26, 82*, 57 and 128* - 465 runs at an average of 93, and a strike rate of 162.58. In defeats, he scored 268 runs in seven innings at an average of 38.28 and a strike rate of 157.64, which are pretty exceptional numbers by themselves. Gayle has also struck 59 of his team's 117 sixes, which is marginally more than 50%. Thanks largely to Gayle, Royal Challengers also struck 30 sixes more than next-best side - Delhi Daredevils are second on the sixes list with 87.
Apart from Royal Challengers, the others teams that relied on one player on a large chunk of their runs were Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers. Gautam Gambir contributed more than 27% of Knight Riders' runs, with Jacques Kallis, the second-highest run-getter for them, managing only 15%. Shikhar Dhawan's percentage contribution for Chargers was 25.84%, but Cameron White contributed mightily for them too, scoring 479 runs, almost 22% of their team's runs. The team with the most runs in the round-robin stages was Rajasthan Royals: they scored 2393, with Ajinkya Rahane, their top run-getter, contributing 560 of those - a percentage of 23.40.
On the other hand, there were four teams in which the leading scorer contributed less than 20% of the team's bat runs. At the bottom of the list is Pune Warriors - Robin Uthappa had a below-par tournament, but he was still their leading run-scorer, contributing 18.55% of their runs. Steven Smith had better numbers (average 40.22, strike rate 135.58), but didn't have as many opportunities to score as he was batting down the order.
Percent of runs contributed by the highest scorer for each team* Bat runs only
The slog-over bowlers
Only nine bowlers have bowled more than 90 balls in the last five overs in IPL 2012. Two of them have been exceptional: Lasith Malinga has continued his form from previous seasons, with 17 wickets at an average of 9.05 and an economy rate of less than seven, but one bowler has even better numbers: Sunil Narine has confounded all batsmen with his different types of spins, and has been especially successful in the last few overs, when batsmen have tried to score off him and struggled. Narine has taken 16 wickets in the last five, at an incredible average of 8.81 and economy rate of 6.36. The other bowler who has stood out is Delhi Daredevils' Morne Morkel, who has 12 wickets at an economy rate of less than 7.50. Thus, three of the four teams in the playoffs have outstanding bowlers who've had plenty of success in the slog overs; the only exception is Chennai Super Kings, for whom Dwayne Bravo has done a lot of bowling at the death but without a lot of success.
At the bottom of that table is Vinay Kumar of Royal Challengers Bangalore. The team has reposed plenty of faith in him during the slog overs, but Vinay hasn't exactly repaid that faith, going at almost 11 runs per over.
Bowlers who bowled more than 90 balls in the last five overs
The pace-spin equation
As in most seasons, this year too spinners were slightly more economical than the fast bowlers, but conceded more runs per wicket. In the Powerplay overs, pace accounted for far more wickets than spin: spinners bowled about 30% of the overs, but took less than 18% of the wickets. There were a few spinners who were economical during the Powerplay, but not among the wickets: Narine conceded only 66 runs in 14 overs, but managed two wickets; R Ashwin bowled 23 overs during the Powerplays, easily the most by any spinner, and took three wickets for 147 (economy rate 6.39). Among the fast bowlers, Steyn was outstanding in the Powerplays, taking eight wickets for 125 runs in 24 overs (economy rate 5.20). The highest wicket-taker in the Powerplays was Morne Morkel - he took 11 for 199 in 31 overs.
Spinners bowled much more in the middle overs, with mixed success. Muttiah Muralitharan was outstanding, taking 11 for 159 in 30 overs, while Narine had 4 for 56 in 15. The two legspinners, Piyush Chawla and Amit Mishra had similar figures: Chawla took 10 for 328 in 45 overs, while Mishra took 12 for 311 in 40. Harbhajan Singh's stats were more disappointing, largely because he struggled for wickets: in 41 overs, he took 5 for 296 - an average of 59.20 and economy rate of 7.21.
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