Andre Russell, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Marcus Stoinis are all included in the fifth team of the week for IPL 2024. Every XI can contain a maximum of four overseas players besides having no more than three players from a single franchise. Like last year, there is also an Impact Player to be chosen every week in addition to the starting XI
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Yashasvi Jaiswal (RR): Short of runs during the first half of this season, Jaiswal returned to his belligerent best against MI, with an elegant 104 not out off 60 balls. Two healthy partnerships with Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson saw Jaiswal strike nine fours and seven sixes in total, as RR remained ahead of the asking rate for the most part, before wrapping up the game with eight balls to spare. Just the confidence boost Jaiswal needed as the IPL gradually approaches its business end
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Travis Head (SRH): He may not have clicked against RCB in Hyderabad, but pitted against DC at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Head was simply unstoppable. As part of a mind-boggling 131-run stand (achieved in just six overs) with Abhishek Sharma, Head batted as if he was on the playstation. Eleven fours and six sixes meant he hit every second ball for a boundary, eventually leaving the stage 11 runs short of a memorable century
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Jake Fraser-McGurk (DC): Chasing 267 against SRH in the capital on Saturday, DC needed their number three to launch from ball one. Fraser-McGurk did that and a whole lot more. Facing just 18 balls, out of which 12 were boundaries and seven were sixes, he sped his way to a swashbuckling 65. Four days later, the Australian was at it again, getting a quickfire 23 against GT to get DC off the blocks in no time
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Rishabh Pant (DC): He may not have scored at express pace against SRH in Delhi on Saturday, but the 45 runs Pant got gave him enough time in the middle to allow him to cut loose at the same venue against GT on Wednesday. Coming into bat with DC looking shaky at 44 for 3 in the sixth over, Pant played a captain’s knock, facing 43 balls for his 88, with five fours and no less than eight sixes to boost. Behind the wicket, he also grabbed two outstanding catches to get rid of Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia
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Rajat Patidar (RCB): Patidar wasted no time to take the attack to the SRH bowlers at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium on Thursday, racing to 50 in 19 balls, with two fours and five sixes, including four on the trot, before falling to Jaydev Unadkat. This after Patidar began watchfully but accelerated at the right time against KKR at the Eden Gardens on Sunday, hitting three fours and five sixes en route to a highly watchable 52 off 23 balls
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Marcus Stoinis (LSG): “MS finishes off in style in Chennai” read a cheeky post from the LSG social media account. After all, the finisher the post was celebrating was not Dhoni, but Stoinis, who played one of the most spectacular IPL knocks of all-time, hitting 124 not out off just 63 balls, including 13 fours and six sixes. This more than made up for his bowling woes on the night, even though it was his bowling that had proved more effective — one for seven in two overs — when the two teams met four days earlier in Lucknow
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Andre Russell (KKR): After a stop-start innings of 27 off 20 balls, KKR needed Russell to strike quickly once he entered the fray with the ball. That is precisely what the West Indian did, bagging the wickets of Will Jacks and Patidar in his first over. Even though he did not complete his full quota of four overs, Russell delivered one of the decisive blows of the game when he got Dinesh Karthik caught in the deep off the last ball of the penultimate over of the match
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Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore (GT): A breakthrough performance against PBKS at Mullanpur saw Sai Kishore pick up four for 33 in his four overs on Sunday. With his seemingly gentle left-arm spin, the 27-year-old got the wickets of Jitesh Sharma, Shashank Singh, Ashutosh Sharma and Harpreet Brar, ensuring PBKS never got any meaningful momentum. It was a different story against DC, however, with Sai Kishore giving away 22 runs in his only over, before striking a couple of meaty blows with the bat at the death
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Karn Sharma (RCB): After almost spoiling the KKR party at Eden on Sunday with some scintillating sixes off Mitchell Starc, RCB’s frontline spinner came good with the ball in Hyderabad on Thursday. Giving away just 29 runs in his four overs, Karn got the ball to grip and bounce, disturbing the furniture of Nitish Kumar Reddy and completing a neat caught and bowled to send Abdul Samad back to the dressing room
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Sandeep Sharma (RR): Probably the most underrated Indian seamer in IPL history, Sandeep put his injury woes and indifferent form behind with a masterclass in new ball bowling against MI. Having dismissed Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav in his first spell, the 30-year-old returned to remove Tilak Varma and Tim David in the last over of the innings, restricting MI to 179 on a Jaipur pitch that demanded far more
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T. Natarajan (SRH): It has been a stellar week for the left-arm pacer with six wickets in two games. His four for 19 against DC came in a game where no other bowler went under seven runs an over. By cleaning up DC’s lower order, Natarajan gave SRH a thumping victory by 67 runs, before carrying on the good work against RCB by getting the wickets of Faf du Plessis and Swapnil Singh
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Impact Player: Shivam Dube (CSK): Eight balls for just three runs made for a forgettable outing for Dube in Lucknow, but back in his comfort zone of Chennai, the southpaw was relentless in attacking the LSG bowlers on Tuesday, consistently hitting good length balls over mid-wicket and long-on. Outsourcing skipper and centurion Ruturaj Gaikwad in their 104-run stand, Dube smashed 66 with a strike rate of 244, which included a staggering boundary percentage of 37
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