Mascarenhas best value for money
 Adam Gilchrist, we said on Friday, was the most valuable player so far of IPL's second season. But considering that players are earning vastly
different fees, who's the best value for money? Dmitry Mascarenhas is the unlikely leader of the top 10, while the only ones from the ten most valuable players to also figure in the 10 best value for money buys are Gilly and Lasith Malinga.
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Run your eye through the top 10 in the value for money index and you would realise that Sri Lankans and West Indians make up half the list and there's a solitary Indian in the form of Munaf Patel at No. 9, one step ahead of Gilchrist.
That's because players from the Windies and our island neighbours fetched relatively modest prices at the auctions last year and this year, fees that were nowhere near the astronomical amounts Indian stars got or even the slightly more modest sums that Australians were able to bag.
Following Mascarenhas are Dwayne Bravo and his namesake and compatriot Dwayne Smith. Bravo sold for $200,000 while Smith fetched $100,000 and both all-rounders have done enough to get ahead of other foreign stars who may have bigger performances, but have even bigger pay packets.
Next in line are Brad Hodge, A B de Villiers and T M Dilshan. Malinga and Scott Styris take up slots 7 and 8. Munaf may not seem to have done enough to figure so high, but remember that unlike most Team India players he fetched a mere $ 275,000 at the IPL auction last year.
But, to get back to the beginning, how did we get these rankings? We used the points - for batting, bowling, fielding and captaincy - that determined the most valuable player index. We then calculated how many points each IPL player has accumulated for every $100,000 payable to him in fees for the matches played till Friday night.
The current index is restricted to players whose contracted fees have been disclosed -- most because they were part of the auctions or were icon players last year.
The chances are that there are a whole lot of lesser players - including several Indians like Pragyan Ojha, L Balaji and Amit Mishra -- who would figure higher on the value for money index than the foreign ones currently on top. But we can't be sure till we know their contracted fees. As and when we do, we will update the index.
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