Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga has been adjudged as the greatest bowler in the history of the Indian Premier League by a jury comprising former cricketers, journalists and analysts. 

The Mumbai Indians pace spearhead beat Dale Steyn, Sunil Narine, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah. 

The other bowlers in the elite nominee list were Ashish Nehra, Amit Mishra, Imran Tahir and Yuzvendra Chahal. 

The 36-year-old was bestowed the honour by Star Sports with the jury comprising of veteran cricketers and commentators like Kevin Pietersen, Dean Jones, Mathew Hayden, Aakash Chopra, Graeme Smith, Simon Doull and Tom Moody.

While explaining his choice to pick Malinga, former England captain Pietersen said that the Sri Lankan’s numbers speak for him. 

“I’m going with Lasith. You look at the numbers he has served up and the way he has consistently used that yorker, that makes everyone talk about it. Malinga is my guy,” Pietersen said.

The English legend also said that Malinga was a notch above Sunil Narine, as the latter had bowled on wickets which aided spin.

In the list of greatest of all times, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Rohit Sharma jointly bagged the honours for captaincy. 

Former South African player AB De Villers was rated as the best batsman in the IPL history, while Australian Shane Watson bagged the title of the greatest all-rounder.