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Agarkar: Amla the only standout overseas player

Where they finished

Fifth, with seven wins and seven defeats.

The good

Hashim Amla had his breakthrough IPL season. In his second year in the league, Amla topped the Kings XI Punjab run charts, making 420 runs at an average of 60 and strike rate of 146. He filled the void created by M Vijay's injury, and Kings XI sorely missed him in their must-win game against Rising Pune Supergiant to make the playoffs; Amla had left for South Africa duty by then.

Fast bowler Sandeep Sharma and allrounder Axar Patel showcased their skills at various points. Sandeep was Man of the Match in successive games, for his 4 for 20 against Delhi Daredevils, and for dismissing Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers against Royal Challengers Bangalore. He finished with 17 wickets, and was the joint highest wicket-taker in the Powerplay - nine and an economy of less than seven - along with Mitchell McClenaghan. Axar was Kings XIs second highest wicket-taker with 15, and scored his 227 runs at a strike rate of 140.

Legspinner Rahul Tewatia had been bought for INR 25 lakh at the auction but didn't play until late in the league phase. Tewatia took 2 for 18 in his first game, dismissing Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa against Kolkata Knight Riders. In all, Tewatia bowled nine overs in the tournament and conceded only 49 runs.

The bad

Kings XI struggled to finish well with the ball. They conceded 10.37 an over in the last five overs. Only Gujarat Lions were worse.

Kings XI did not start well either, with bat and ball. They lost 25 wickets in the first six overs of the innings. Only RCB and Daredevils lost more. The 17 wickets they took in the Powerplay was the lowest after KKR's 16.

Their contingent of overseas players contained too many batsmen, and only Amla pulled his weight. David Miller was benched after making 83 runs in five games, and Shaun Marsh, Eoin Morgan and Martin Guptill were patchy.

Glenn Maxwell fared better, making 310 at a strike rate of 173, but played himself too low in the batting order. He finished the season having played only 18 balls in the Powerplay, and scored only 11 runs off them for three dismissals.

What Glenn Maxwell said after their campaign ESPNcricinfo Ltd

The ugly

Kings XI had stayed alive by winning two successive games in the last week of the league, and now needed to win their final match to seal a playoff spot. But they subsided for 73 - their lowest IPL total - against Rising Pune. The lack of fight drew the wrath of Kings XI's director of cricket Virender Sehwag, who slammed Maxwell and the overseas batsmen for not taking responsibility.

Kings XI had bought eight players at the auction in February and they played only 28 matches in total. Darren Sammy and Rinku Singh did not play a game, while Morgan and Varun Aaron, among their most expensive purchases, did nothing of note. Ishant Sharma, who was Vijay's replacement, went wicketless in all his six games and conceded nearly 10 an over. Kings XI splurged nearly INR 8 crore on Ishant, T Natarajan, who was underused, and Aaron; money that could have been spent more wisely.

The missing ingredient

Allrounders. Apart from Axar, they only had Marcus Stoinis, who made 17 runs in three innings and took two wickets in five, while going at 10.47 an over. Maxwell bowled himself sparingly despite being economical, with seven wickets in 14 matches at 6.57.

Out of their control

Wrist and shoulder injuries ruled Vijay out of the tournament. They also lost Amla at a crucial stage. Guptill's hamstring trouble kept him out of the first half of the season and he never took off after regaining fitness.

Agarkar: Relying too much on Warner hurt Sunrisers

Where they finished

Lost the Eliminator to Kolkata Knight Riders after finishing third in the league stage.

The good

Sunrisers won the 2016 IPL title primarily on the back of their bowlers; Mustafizur Rahman, in particular. He only played one match this season, but they hardly missed him, as Rashid Khan took over the role of the go-to overseas bowler, undoing the opposition frequently with deadly variations. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who won the Purple Cap last season, has an excellent chance of doing so again - he ended his tournament with 26 wickets - and, at the time of writing, his nearest active challenger, Jaydev Unadkat, has 22.

While Sunrisers' batting was exaggeratedly top-heavy in 2016, responsibilities were distributed far better this season, with Kane Williamson (256 runs at a strike rate of 151.47), Yuvraj Singh (252 runs at 142.37) and Moises Henriques (277 at 136.45) complementing the efforts of David Warner (641 at 141.81) and Shikhar Dhawan (479 at 127.39).

Warner, as always, was phenomenal, scoring four fifties and a brutal 59-ball 126 against Kolkata Knight Riders, and ended the tournament with a 155-run gap from his nearest rival, Gautam Gambhir, in the race to the Orange Cap.

The bad

Having begun the tournament as its best-performing bowling team by some distance, they ended up looking over-reliant on Bhuvneshwar and Rashid through its second half. Siddarth Kaul and Mohammed Siraj showed flashes of potential, but couldn't entirely make up for Ashish Nehra missing large chunks of the tournament due to injury. The biggest disappointment, though, was Henriques. Last season, he had struggled with the bat while proving to be a valuable bowling asset - he took 12 wickets at an economy rate of 7.98. This season, he flipped that performance around, excelling with the bat while only taking one wicket in 12 matches and conceding 10.33 runs per over.

The missing ingredient

• Sunrisers' Powerplay run rate, 7.73, was the second-lowest in the league, above only Royal Challengers Bangalore's 6.53. This wasn't so much owing to a lack of form or hitting ability in Sunrisers' top order, as it was due to an unusually cautious approach: Sunrisers only lost 11 wickets in 14 Powerplays - the least among all teams.
• It is quite possible that they adopted this approach due to a lack of faith in the lower-middle order. The numbers seem to bear this out: Sunrisers' top five had, by far, the best average, 42.32, in the tournament, with Knight Riders a distant second with 34.96. But Sunrisers' strike rate, 139.39, was only the fifth-best.
• As a result, Sunrisers' Nos. 6 and 7, only faced 88 balls in the tournament. By contrast, the batsmen occupying those positions for Knight Riders, who faced the second-fewest balls among all the teams, faced nearly twice as many balls - 170. Naman Ojha, Sunrisers' wicketkeeper, only batted five times in 14 matches.
• Sunrisers may have structured their innings differently had they possessed a proper lower-order hitter - ideally an Indian batsman - since the presence of so many other quality overseas players had already restricted Ben Cutting to playing only four matches.
• Being able to take more risks during the Powerplay may have swung a couple of tight matches Sunrisers' way. This is lent some credence by their performance in their away game against Rising Pune - Warner and Dhawan made 73 off 69 between them, and Sunrisers only lost three wickets while scoring 176. Pune chased it down in an MS Dhoni-inspired last-ball finish.

Out of their control

The rain in Bengaluru, twice. The first time, it washed out their match against a Royal Challengers Bangalore team low on form and morale. It was a contest they may have expected to win but, due to the one-point sharing rule, they eventually finished a point behind second-placed Rising Pune Supergiant in the league stage, despite boasting a better net run rate.

The second time rain hit the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, it arrived halfway through their Eliminator on Wednesday. They had only made 128, but conditions were challenging to bat in. Their bowling attack could have made a decent fist of defending 128 in 20 overs; instead, they had to defend 47 in six. With early strikes, they still managed to cause some flutters in the Knight Riders camp, reducing them to three down in 1.1 overs.

Agarkar: KKR persisted too much with Narine as opener

Where they finished

Eliminated in Qualifier 2 by Mumbai Indians, after finishing fourth in the league stage with eights wins and six losses.

The good

Kolkata Knight Riders were the most destructive team in the Powerplay this season, scoring at 9.39 per over. They also hit the most boundaries in the first six overs - 117 fours. After the league stage, that figure was 115, comfortably ahead of Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI Punjab, both of whom had 92 fours. It was a significant improvement to their Powerplay performance last season, where they scored at 7.96 per over.

In 2016, Andre Russell and Yusuf Pathan were the only KKR batsmen - with a minimum of five innings - to score at a strike rate of more than 140. This season, given Russell's absence and Yusuf's poor form, Knight Riders looked to compensate at the top of the order. The result was a formidable top-order combination - Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine and Robin Uthappa all finished with strike rates in excess of 165.

Knight Riders have traditionally been a spin-reliant team, but this season the fast bowlers took the bulk of the wickets. Umesh Yadav (17), Chris Woakes (17) and Nathan Coulter-Nile (15) topped the charts for them this year, taking 53% of the wickets.

For the second season in a row, Gautam Gambhir finished as their top scorer - 498 runs with four fifties. Only David Warner (641 runs) had scored more than Gambhir before the final.

The bad

While the top order covered up for the lack of power lower down, it came at a cost. Narine, originally a replacement for the injured Lynn, retained the opening slot even when the Australian returned. This created imbalance in the middle order. Robin Uthappa, who scored three fifties in a row at No. 3 before picking up an injury, returned to the squad at No. 4 and made scores of 0, 2 and 1 in the position. In between, he opened the innings in the rain-hit Eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad and scored 1.

Gambhir also dropped down the order, and made only one 30-plus score in his last five innings. This meant that in a lot of games in the second half of the league, Knight Riders either lost momentum after a good start or began with a collapse. In either case, it forced the lower-middle order to be more watchful.

Gautam Gambhir top-scored for Kolkata Knight Riders but the shuffling of the batting order may have affected his form towards the end BCCI

Knight Riders had the third poorest economy rate - 10.18 - in the slog overs, after Gujarat Lions and Kings XI Punjab, in the league stage. While they also took the most wickets between overs 16 and 20 (28), the fact that they conceded the most runs among all sides (496) diminished that success.

The missing ingredient

A genuine allrounder. Narine came close to filling that role, but he had a poor season with the ball - ten wickets in 16 innings at 41.20 - and didn't exactly make up for it with the bat either. In seven innings against the other teams that finished in the top four, Narine made five single-digit scores and his highest was 16, against Rising Pune. In these matches, he managed only four wickets in eight innings at an average of 54.25.

Colin de Grandhomme and Yusuf Pathan both returned unflattering figures with bat and ball, while Chris Woakes was used as a frontline bowler. Shakib Al Hasan, the one player who could have filled this hole, got only one match.

Out of their control

Injuries to Lynn and Uthappa set Knight Riders back this season. In both instances, the injuries occurred immediately after the batsmen had shown signs of tremendous form. They had also lost Russell to a ban for an anti-doping code violation.

ESPNcricinfo's all-time IPL XI (Player stats as on May 18, 2017)

AB de Villiers's omission was partly due to the strength of the all-Indian middle-order, and is likely to spur a few debates below the line. The choice between Bravo and Shane Watson for the lone allrounder's slot was decided based on the lack of room in Watson's favoured batting positions at the top of the order, and Bravo's marginally superior numbers and consistent wicket-taking ability while bowling at the death. The bowlers picked themselves, with Malinga, the tournament's highest wicket-taker, and Narine, its most economical bowler, rounding off the overseas roster.

The captain
MS Dhoni was the overwhelming favourite to lead the side. Apart from being statistically the most successful captain over nine seasons, he has led most of the players who make up this squad in his role as India's captain over the best part of the past decade. It is a decision that is hard to argue with, considering his trophy cabinet and prolonged success as the leader of one of the most consistent sides in the IPL.

The rest
Record-holders of all manner make up the rest of the XI: the three highest run-getters in the IPL - Raina, Kohli and Rohit - the batsman with the most runs during the tournament's knockout phases - Raina - three of its five most successful captains - Dhoni, Rohit, Kohli - and the format's most prolific run machine at the top of the order - Gayle.