5 international stars who warmed the bench throughout IPL 2016

The IPL can be a great leveller. Here, superstars are often humbled given the restrictions that no team can play more than 4 foreign players in their playing XI. Most teams have a massive foreign contingent to make sure the captains have options for all conditions, on all sorts of pitches and for backup required. From time to time, star players do not find a spot in the playing XI considering the overseas quota is also filled up.

This year witnessed many players who are stars in their own right for their national teams but had to warm the bench for the greater part of the season. While players like Colin Munro, Brad Hogg, Eoin Morgan and Kane Williamson played more than a few matches, on and off, some players rarely got a chance to show their skills.

The list of players who warmed the bench for most part of the season has some big names on it. We take a look at five of those. Apart from those, there were others like Jerome Taylor, David Wiese and Shaun Tait who could hardly do much during the season.

#1 Dale Steyn (Gujarat Lions)

Arguably, one of the greatest fast bowlers ever and undoubtedly, the best fast bowler of his generation, Steyn spent almost the entire season on the bench for Gujarat Lions. Suresh Raina, the skipper, and the team think-tank went with firepower in the batting department, regularly picking up Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch and Dwayne Smith.

Dwayne Bravo as an all-rounder was the fourth pick. Steyn, bought by Gujarat Lions for an impressive 2.3 crore rupees after a bidding war with Rising Pune Supergiants, got just one game – against his former team Sunrisers Hyderabad. Steyn bowled just 2 overs conceding 17 runs with SRH winning the match by 10 wickets. That could probably be one of the worst campaigns for Steyn, who didn’t get an opportunity to impress for IPL’s best team during the league stage.