Four-hundred runs at a strike rate of 238 is pretty compelling, even in a season dominated by big hitting. Those are Vaibhav Sooryavanshi‘s stats so far in IPL 2026, and they’re enough to make him the Most Valuable Player of the season, according to ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats, which rates every batting and bowling performance based on context and match situation.
Sooryavanshi’s strike-rate is the best among batters who have scored 300 or more runs in any IPL season, among 460 instances of batters making the cut of 300 runs. His 400 runs have come out of 689 team runs scored while he has been at the crease (including extras), which means he has contributed more than 58% of runs scored while he’s in the middle. That dominance is reflected in his Impact rating of 55.1, which is a per-match figure which considers not just runs scored, but also contribution while at the crease.
The batter who comes in next in the list ticks that dominance box even more emphatically: Priyansh Arya‘s tournament aggregate is only 283 – 13 batters have scored more – but Arya’s strike rate is a phenomenal 250.4, the best among batters who’ve faced at least five balls this season. His batting impact is encapsulated in his performance against CSK, when he faced just 11 balls but scored 39 in a chase of 210. Four batters scored more runs in the match, but Arya was ESPNcricinfo’s MVP and the Player of the Match for his 11-ball blitz.
In fact, the top 10 impact list (with a cut-off of six matches played) is dominated by opening batters and fast bowlers. Apart from Sooryavanshi and Arya, there are also Prabhsimran Singh, Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson in the top 10, while Kagiso Rabada, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jofra Archer represent the fast bowlers’ club. Jamie Overton is there too, but in his case the rating points of 52.7 comes almost equally from batting (25.8) and bowling (26.9). The only spinner in the top 10 is Mohammad Ghazanfar, whose 10 wickets is second-best for a spinner this season.
While Mumbai Indians haven’t had much to celebrate over the last month, two of their batters feature in the top 10 best innings of the season. Tilak Varma’s unbeaten 101 off 45 has the highest rating points so far. Coming in at 44 for 3 in the sixth over against Gujarat Titans, Tilak made 101 out of 155 runs while he was at the crease. He struck at a rate of 224.4 (101 off 45), while the other batters collectively had a strike rate of 125 (50 off 40).
Samson’s two hundreds – against Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals – come in next. Though he scored against DC, the innings against MI slots in slightly higher because of the lack of support – seven other CSK batters collectively scored 97 off 66. In the DC game, Ayush Mhatre offered excellent support with a 36-ball 59.
Sooryavanshi’s 26-ball 78 against RCB is the lowest score in the top 10, but makes it to number four due to his incredible strike-rate of 300. Meanwhile, KL Rahul’s 152, the highest score of the season, comes in only at 10th place as his runs came in an extremely high-scoring defeat – 529 runs were scored in 38.5 overs, and DC lost with seven balls to spare.
Meanwhile, Arshdeep’s 3 for 22 against MI slots in as the best bowling effort so far. Arshdeep dismissed high-quality batters early – Ryan Rickelton for 2 and Suryakumar Yadav for a first-ball duck – and went at only 5.5 runs per over while his team-mates leaked 169 runs off 16 overs (10.56 per over). Jacob Duffy’s identical 3 for 22 in the season opener against SRH comes in next because of similar reasons: he dismissed Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma early, and went at 5.5 even as SRH amassed 201.
Mohsin Khan’s 5 for 23 – the only five-for in the tournament so far – comes in next, while Mohammed Shami’s 2 for 9 is the only top 10 entry with a haul of fewer than three wickets. Shami dismissed both Head and Abhishek early (for 7 and 0), and went at 2.25 runs per over, while the other LSG bowlers conceded 145 from 16 (9.06 runs per over). Deservedly, Shami won the Player-of-the-Match award.
