AB de Villiers and Lasith Malinga were declared as the greatest batsman and bowler in IPL history respectively. MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma were jointly named the greatest captain. (File Photo/BCCI)
MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, AB de Villiers, Lasith Malinga and Shane Watson were declared as the Greatest of All Time (GOATs) across categories in Indian Premier League (IPL) history by a cricket jury.
The selections were made by a jury comprising Gautam Gambhir, Kevin Pietersen, Ashish Nehra, Irfan Pathan and Danny Morrison on the Star Sports show ‘Cricket Connected’ on Saturday, the 13th anniversary of the tournament’s first ever match.
Best Captain – Chennai Super Kings (CSK) skipper MS Dhoni and Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma were named the joint winners of the GOAT award in the captain’s category.
Best Batsman – AB de Villiers was named as the greatest batsman, Lasith Malinga was named as the greatest bowler and Shane Watson was named as the greatest all-rounder. Suresh Raina and Chris Gayle were mentioned to have been in the running in the batsmen’s category and Sunil Narine was mentioned to have been in contention in the bowler’s category.
Best Indian players – The greatest Indians in IPL history were declared to be Virat Kohli in the batsman’s category and Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the bowler’s category.
Best Coach – Stephen Fleming, also of CSK, was named as the greatest coach in IPL history. Dhoni, Fleming and Shane Watson
The jury comprised 50 members which included former cricketers (20), senior sports journalists (10), statisticians & analysts (10), broadcasters (7) and anchors (3) and analysts who chose the best among the list of top 10 players in each category and a list of 5 players each in categories of Greatest Captain and Coach. This list was then deliberated over by Gambhir, Pietersen, Nehra, Pathan and Morrison.
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