Kieron Pollard

The arrival

Kieron Pollard arrived through the auction: Mumbai Indians paid ₹3.45 cr (US$750k), against a base price of ₹92 lakh.

That first season brought 14 matches, 273 runs and 15 wickets at 7.37 an over.

The peak

The high point with the bat was 2013, for Mumbai Indians: 420 runs at an average of 42.0, striking at 149.5 in a season when the league as a whole struck at 121.5, with 3 fifties, and a highest score of 66 not out. Mumbai Indians won the title that year. There were two seasons of 400 runs or more in all (2013 and 2015).

Measured against the league around it, though, the most destructive season was 2010: 273 runs at a strike rate of 185.7, 59 runs per hundred balls quicker than the IPL as a whole that year.

With the ball, the best season was 2012, for Mumbai Indians: 16 wickets at 7.95 runs an over, while the league's bowlers went for 7.64, with best figures of 4 for 44. Two seasons brought 15 wickets or more (2010 and 2012).

One franchise

Kieron Pollard spent the whole IPL career with Mumbai Indians, from 2010 to 2022. Mumbai Indians went back to the auction to buy Kieron Pollard again in 2018 for ₹5.40 cr. The club won five titles with Kieron Pollard in the side: 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020.

Bat, ball and method

Across the career, Kieron Pollard struck at 147.6. The league around those same seasons, weighted by how much batting each one involved, struck at 129.3, so Kieron Pollard scored about 18 runs per hundred balls faster than the typical batter of the time. 65% of the runs came in fours and sixes: 221 fours and 224 sixes, the 9th-most sixes in IPL history.

The ball-by-ball record adds the detail. 36.2% of the balls Kieron Pollard faced were dot balls, a lower share than 51% of the 140 batters who have faced 500 balls or more in the IPL. A six came every 10.4 balls, the 10th-best rate in that group, and a four every 10.5.

With the ball, 69 wickets in 1,496 deliveries, at 8.74 runs an over against a league rate of 7.82 for the same seasons: 0.93 an over more expensive than the typical bowler of the time. There was one four-wicket haul, and the best figures were 4 for 44.

27.2% of the balls Kieron Pollard bowled were dots, a lower share than 98% of the 150 bowlers with 500 balls or more; a wicket came every 21.6 balls.

The fielding record: 97 catches and 13 run-outs.

At the auction

Kieron Pollard went under the hammer twice. The highest price was ₹5.40 cr, paid by Mumbai Indians in 2018.

Seasons without an auction entry were played under a retention, a trade or a signing made outside the auction.

The legacy

On the all-time IPL lists, among 810 players, Kieron Pollard finished 16th for matches played, 9th for sixes and 13th for player-of-the-match awards.