Updated October 2026 | All stats are as of the end of IPL 2026 (final played 31 May 2026).
Quick answer: On our six-measure ranking, Sunil Narine is the best all rounder in IPL history, with Ravindra Jadeja a close second and Kieron Pollard third. Hardik Pandya, Andre Russell and Dwayne Bravo follow. Of the 29 players with career pages on this site, only these six have scored 1,500 runs and taken 60 wickets in the IPL. Four more players without career pages also clear that bar; they are covered below.
| Rank | Player | Mat | Runs | Wkts | Titles | Rank points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sunil Narine | 202 | 1820 | 207 | 3 | 14.5 |
| 2 | Ravindra Jadeja | 268 | 3526 | 180 | 4 | 16 |
| 3 | Kieron Pollard | 189 | 3412 | 69 | 5 | 20.5 |
| 4 | Hardik Pandya | 162 | 2955 | 82 | 5 | 23.5 |
| 5 | Andre Russell | 140 | 2651 | 123 | 1 | 24 |
| 6 | Dwayne Bravo | 161 | 1560 | 183 | 3 | 27.5 |
Rank points are the sum of a player’s positions on the six measures, so the lowest total wins. Narine’s 14.5 points beat Jadeja’s 16 by a margin of one and a half places, which is why we show below what would change the order.
Selection Criteria and the Rules We Applied
A player can be great with the bat, great with the ball or good at both, so we wanted a method anyone can check. Every number below comes from the career pages on this site, which cover IPL records from 2008 to the 2026 final.
The rules are short:
- The qualifying bar. A player must have scored at least 1,500 IPL runs and taken at least 60 IPL wickets. Of the 29 players with career pages on this site, six clear it.
- Six measures. We rank the six on runs, wickets, batting strike rate, bowling economy rate, IPL titles and player of the match awards. Economy is the only measure where a lower number is better.
- Equal weight. Each measure counts once. A player’s rank points are the sum of his six positions, and the lowest total is first. Where two players are level on a measure, they share the average of the positions.
- IPL only. International records are ignored.
- Titles count only if the player was in the winning XI for the final. That is the rule used on our player pages, which is why Andre Russell is credited with one title.
Our IPL player stats hub holds the underlying pages.
The ranking in full
| Player | Runs | Wickets | Strike rate | Economy | Titles | Player of the match | Rank points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunil Narine | 5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4.5 | 1 | 14.5 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | 1 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 16 |
| Kieron Pollard | 2 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 1.5 | 4 | 20.5 |
| Hardik Pandya | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 1.5 | 5 | 23.5 |
| Andre Russell | 4 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 24 |
| Dwayne Bravo | 6 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 4.5 | 6 | 27.5 |
Each cell is a position from 1 to 6, ties shown as halves. Narine is first on wickets, economy and player of the match awards. Jadeja is first on runs and second on economy and awards.
A worked example: how Pollard scores 20.5
Take Kieron Pollard. His 3,412 runs are second among the six, behind Jadeja, so he gets 2 points. His 69 wickets are the fewest, so he gets 6. His strike rate of 147.32 is third, giving him 3, and his economy of 8.79 is fourth, giving him 4. He and Hardik Pandya are level on five titles, so they share first and second place and take 1.5 points each. His 14 player of the match awards are fourth, so he adds 4. The total is 2 + 6 + 3 + 4 + 1.5 + 4 = 20.5, good enough for third.
How robust is the order?
We reran the ranking with each measure removed in turn. Narine finishes first in the full ranking and in four of the six reruns, the ones without runs, economy, titles or player of the match awards. Jadeja finishes first in the other two, the ones without wickets or strike rate. The top two are always Narine and Jadeja, in one order or the other.
Splitting the measures shows where each player’s points come from. On the two batting measures, runs and strike rate, Pollard and Russell tie on 5 points, with Jadeja next on 6. On the two bowling measures, wickets and economy, Narine leads with 2 points, and Jadeja and Bravo are level on 5.
Best All Rounder in IPL: The Top Six and the Case for Each
1. Sunil Narine
Narine has the best economy rate, 6.79, of the top 20 wicket takers in the IPL, and his 207 wickets are the third most in the league’s history. He has scored 1,820 runs at a strike rate of 165.30, the second highest of the six. He has won three titles, in 2012, 2014 and 2024, and 18 player of the match awards, the most of the six.
The strongest argument for Narine is the IPL’s own most valuable player award. He has won it three times, as player of the tournament in 2012 and as MVP in 2018 and 2024, more than any other player. In 2024 he opened the batting, scored 488 runs and took 17 wickets, for the highest points total in the award’s history. See our most valuable player award page. His weak spot is his batting average, 17.50.
2. Ravindra Jadeja
Jadeja is the best all-rounder on volume. He has played 268 IPL matches, more than any of the others, and has the most runs of the six, 3,526, at an average of 29.14, and 180 wickets at an economy of 7.71, the second lowest. He has won four titles, in 2008, 2018, 2021 and 2023, and 17 player of the match awards.
His case is consistency. He is in the top three on five of the six measures. The exception is strike rate, where his 130.64 is the second lowest of the six, more than 40 runs per hundred balls below Russell’s 174.18. His career page has the season-by-season numbers.
3. Kieron Pollard
Pollard is the best of the batting-first all-rounders. He scored 3,412 runs at a strike rate of 147.32, with 223 sixes, took 69 wickets and won five titles, all with Mumbai Indians, in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020. He won 14 player of the match awards. He played 189 matches in 13 seasons.
The wickets are the reason he is not higher. His 69 are the fewest of the six, though his economy of 8.79 is better than Hardik’s and Russell’s. See the Kieron Pollard career page.
4. Hardik Pandya
Hardik has 2,955 runs at a strike rate of 146.29, 82 wickets at an economy of 9.36 and five titles, four with Mumbai Indians and one with Gujarat Titans, whom he also captained to the title in their first season, 2022. He has played 162 matches.
He is first, jointly with Pollard, on titles and third on runs, but his economy is the second worst of the six and he has eight player of the match awards, more only than Bravo. His record as a captain, covered on our most successful IPL captains page, is a separate argument that our method does not count.
5. Andre Russell
Russell is the most explosive of the six: a career strike rate of 174.18, the highest of the group, with 223 sixes in 140 matches, and 123 wickets as a seamer. He has 16 player of the match awards and was the MVP in 2015 and 2019, when he hit 52 sixes at a strike rate above 200.
He ranks fifth because he is last on two measures: his economy of 9.51 is the worst of the six, and his one title, in 2024, is the fewest. He would rise if batting counted more.
6. Dwayne Bravo
Bravo is the best pure bowler of the six, and our method rates batting as half of the job. He took 183 wickets, the second most of the six, at an economy of 8.38, and won two Purple Caps, in 2013 with 32 wickets, a record he shares, and in 2015. He won three titles, in 2011, 2018 and 2021, but his 1,560 runs and strike rate of 129.57 are both the lowest of the six.
He was a great bowler who batted. See our Dwayne Bravo career page.
Full Stats Table for the Six
| Player | Role | Mat | Runs | Avg | SR | Wkts | Econ | Titles | POM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunil Narine | Spin all-rounder | 202 | 1820 | 17.50 | 165.30 | 207 | 6.79 | 3 | 18 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | Spin all-rounder | 268 | 3526 | 29.14 | 130.64 | 180 | 7.71 | 4 | 17 |
| Kieron Pollard | Batting all-rounder | 189 | 3412 | 28.67 | 147.32 | 69 | 8.79 | 5 | 14 |
| Hardik Pandya | Pace all-rounder | 162 | 2955 | 27.88 | 146.29 | 82 | 9.36 | 5 | 8 |
| Andre Russell | Pace all-rounder | 140 | 2651 | 28.20 | 174.18 | 123 | 9.51 | 1 | 16 |
| Dwayne Bravo | Bowling all-rounder | 161 | 1560 | 22.61 | 129.57 | 183 | 8.38 | 3 | 4 |
Between them the six have scored 15,924 runs, taken 844 wickets and won 21 titles. The abbreviations are matches, runs, batting average, strike rate, wickets, economy rate, titles and player of the match awards.
The Hardest Calls and Who Narrowly Missed Out
Narine against Jadeja
The closest call is the top two. Jadeja beats Narine on runs by 1,706, on average by nearly 12 runs and on titles by one. Narine wins on wickets by 27, on strike rate by almost 35 runs per hundred balls, on economy by 0.92 runs an over and on player of the match awards by one. Each case is reasonable. We chose Narine because the method counts six measures equally and he is first on three of them.
Pollard against Hardik
Third and fourth are separated by three rank points. Pollard has 457 more runs, a better economy and six more player of the match awards. Hardik has 13 more wickets and the same number of titles.
Players who did not qualify
Four players with career pages fall short of the bar. Glenn Maxwell has 2,819 runs but only 41 wickets. He was the MVP in 2014, when his 552 runs at almost 188 per 100 balls carried Kings XI Punjab to their only final of the decade. Suresh Raina has 5,528 runs but 25 wickets. Ravichandran Ashwin (833 runs, 187 wickets) and Rashid Khan (635 runs, 179 wickets) are bowlers who bat.
Players who clear the bar but have no career page yet
Four more players have 1,500 runs and 60 wickets: Shane Watson (3,874 runs, 92 wickets), Jacques Kallis (2,427 runs, 65 wickets), Axar Patel (2,089 runs, 139 wickets) and Krunal Pandya (1,982 runs, 107 wickets). We kept the ranking to players whose full records are on this site, but we also ran the same six measures across all ten. Narine and Jadeja stay first and second, and Watson would come third, ahead of Pollard.
Honourable Mentions
Some famous all-rounders do not have a career page on this site, so we have not ranked them. We name them here with only the facts we can confirm.
- Shane Watson: the MVP in 2008 and 2013, and the all-round heart of Shane Warne’s Rajasthan side that won the first title. In 2013 he combined over 500 runs with 13 wickets.
- Yusuf Pathan: his hundred in 37 balls in 2010 was the record until Chris Gayle’s 30-ball hundred in 2013. See our fastest century page.
- Ben Stokes: the MVP in 2017, when he helped Rising Pune Supergiant reach the final, and the most expensive overseas buy at that auction.
- Axar Patel: 139 wickets at an economy of 7.41 and 2,089 runs across 13 seasons, among the top 20 wicket takers on our most wickets page.
The Bench and Impact Options
Since 2023, each team can replace one member of its XI with an Impact Player from a list of five substitutes. That has changed how all-rounders are used, because a team can bring on a specialist batter or bowler at a natural break. Our guide to the Impact Player rule explains it.
A squad of all-rounders that wanted to use the rule well would keep the players outside the bar on the bench. Maxwell offers 2,819 runs at a strike rate of 155.15 and 41 wickets at 8.30. Rashid Khan offers 179 wickets at 7.28 and 635 runs at a strike rate of 156.40. Ashwin offers 187 wickets at 7.20, and Raina’s part-time off-spin comes with 5,528 runs.
Where Readers Will Disagree
Any ranking of this kind will be challenged. These are the points where we expect the most disagreement.
- Russell is fifth. Many fans would put him higher. He leads on strike rate, but he is last on economy and on titles, and each measure has equal weight.
- Narine is a different kind of all-rounder. He opens and bowls four overs, but his batting average is 17.50. Some would call him a bowler who bats well.
- The bar is ours. A lower bar for wickets would add Maxwell.
- Titles depend on teams. Pollard, Hardik and Jadeja played for strong sides for most of their careers.
- Era matters. Scoring has risen sharply: the average first-innings total was 167.0 from 2020 to 2022 and 189.7 from 2023 to 2026, so a bowler’s economy is harder to compare across eras.
For the overall picture, our greatest IPL XIs hub sets out the side that these players would join, and our all-time IPL XI page explains the choices in detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who would make an all-time IPL XI?
Our all-time IPL XI is Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, AB de Villiers, MS Dhoni, Andre Russell, Ravindra Jadeja, Sunil Narine, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Yuzvendra Chahal. Three of the six all-rounders on this page, Russell, Jadeja and Narine, are in it.
Who is the greatest IPL player ever?
There is no single agreed answer. Virat Kohli has the most runs, Yuzvendra Chahal the most wickets, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma the most titles as captain (five each), and Sunil Narine is the only three-time winner of the IPL’s most valuable player award. The all-rounder with the most overall value on our ranking is Narine.
Who is the best all-rounder in IPL history?
On our six-measure ranking it is Sunil Narine, with 207 wickets at an economy of 6.79, 1,820 runs at a strike rate of 165.30 and three titles. Ravindra Jadeja is second.
Which IPL all-rounder has won the most titles?
Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya have won five titles each. Pollard won all five with Mumbai Indians, and Hardik won four with Mumbai and one with Gujarat Titans.
Who has the highest strike rate among IPL all-rounders?
Andre Russell, at 174.18, ahead of Sunil Narine at 165.30. Both are among the six all-rounders who have scored 1,500 runs and taken 60 wickets.
Why is Andre Russell not ranked first?
He has the highest strike rate of the six but the worst economy rate, 9.51, and only one title, so he scores fewer rank points than Narine and Jadeja when all six measures are counted equally.