Kevin Pietersen, Gautam Gambhir and Danny Morrison, the former England, India and New Zealand international players, respectively, were tasked to pick the greatest batsman in the history of Indian Premier League (IPL).
The trio all agreed that it was a very difficult job to arrive at one name when the league has had some of the best stars of world cricket featuring in.
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But their job was made slightly easier by host broadcaster Star Sports' expert jury, comprising 50 members, including 20 former cricketers, 10 senior sports journalists, 10 statisticians and 10 analysts, who narrowed the list down to Virat Kohli, David Warner, Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers, curiously leaving out Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina.
These options were then put across to Gambhir, Pietersen and Morrison to pick one each on the show 'Cricket Connected'.
Pietersen, on his part, went with the mighty Gayle, for having scored 4484 runs in 124 innings, including six centuries and 326 sixes - both IPL records.
"I’m surprised, the finisher Dhoni is not there. Gayle has lifted the IPL for a number of years. He bats at the top of the order and has brought so much sexiness to the IPL and he has been very smart in the way he has approached his batting," said the man, who, like Gayle, is an ex-Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) cricketer.
"He has seen off some of the good bowlers and against the one he thinks he can hit from Bangalore to Mumbai, he sends them all the way. He creates so much excitement and he has aura around him when you see him."
Gambhir, however, picked Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) skipper David Warner, who has the most runs for a foreign batsman in the league, with 4706 runs in 126 innings at a strike-rate of 142.39.
"I’m really surprised you don’t have Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina in the list. Out of these four, David Warner straightaway because the rest three guys haven’t won a single tournament till now but warner single-handedly won it for SRH," said Gambhir.
To make matters worse, Morrison also selected a different name to the ones Gambhir and Pietersen opted for; he picked AB de Villiers, with 4,395 runs in 142 innings at a strike-rate of 151.24.
"I like ABD only because he’s 360. I’m gonna go with Mr. 360 as I’ve seen him score all around the clock in the IPL," said Morrison
To break the tie, votes of Irfan Pathan and Ashish Nehra were also taken into consideration and De Villiers was finalised as the greatest batsman in the history of IPL.
Virat Kohli, the RCB and India skipper, was deemed the greatest Indian batsman of IPL. Kohli has made 5,412 runs at a strike-rate of 131.61 across 169 innings.
(Inputs from HT)
