3 Indian Premier League stars who didn't live up to their hype
Cricket in India is not just a sport, it's the religion where people of all background come together to celebrate the beauty of the game with a lot of pride and happiness. Any cricketing event in India is attended by thousands of fans, it's not the team nor a player but it's the game that people have loved over all these years and will continue to happen.
Introduction of the Indian Premier League (IPL, a T20 format) on 18 April 2008 just added to the growing popularity of the game as India had won the first T20 world cup in 2007. That was the beginning of a new era as the new age format was gaining popularity because of its fast-paced nature.
It's been 10 years till date and IPL has produced hundreds of youngsters from which the selectors pick players who can represent their national team. Many of them have made into their country's national team because of their performance in IPL with the likes of Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah and many more. But on the other side, there have been players who have faded away even after an amazing IPL career.
Here is a list of three players who faded away from the spotlight.
#1 Paul Valthaty
If at all you have witnessed IPL 2011 you would surely be surprised as to why Paul Valthaty couldn't make it. Paul represented the U-19 India side in 2002 World Cup lead by Parthiv Patel which included Stuart Binny and Irfan Pathan as well. Never did he come into the spotlight until his role for the Kings XI Punjab in 2011 IPL proved his value.
Paul represented Kings XI Punjab in 2011 edition and scored the first century of the season against the mighty Chennai Super Kings. Having a look at the stats of his career in IPL.
2011 IPL: Paul Scored 463 runs from 14 matches with the highest score of 120 and two half-centuries with a strike rate of over 138.98. His impact didn't just stop with the batting, he had a decent record with the bowl as well, picking up 7 wickets out of 14 matches with 4/29 being his best bowling figures.
2012 IPL: We could see the hype that was created around Paul was diminishing when he scored just 30 runs out of 6 matches.
2013 IPL: This edition was a disastrous one as he got to play only one match, and he could score only six runs.
That was the end of Paul Valthaty in the IPL scenario as he remained unsold in 2014. He now plays for Air India.