Photo Credit: Professional Cricketers’ Association
Buttler named Vitality IT20 Men’s Player of the Summer
- Jos Buttler records 162.87 points to win the MVP Award
- Liam Livingstone and stand-in skipper Phil Salt finished second and third respectively
- Vitality IT20 Men’s Player of the Summer was selected by the PCA MVP Rankings
England’s limited-overs captain Jos Buttler has won 2024 Vitality IT20 Men’s Player of the Summer following some outstanding performances against Pakistan and at the T20 World Cup.
Buttler, 34, played 10 IT20 matches during the summer, including eight at the World Cup where England reached the semi-finals. The swashbuckling wicketkeeper-batter was in a league of his own and topped the IT20 MVP standings with 162.87 points.
Despite missing the IT20 series against Australia through injury, the opening batter still managed to score 337 runs at an average of 48.14 and an extraordinary strike-rate of 162.80.
He also showed his ‘keeping prowess by taking seven catches and two stumpings.
The Lancashire star produced some memorable performances throughout the summer. His best outing coming against the United States at the World Cup, where he scored an unbeaten 83 off just 38 deliveries in an innings which saw him hit five sixes in one over. Buttler picked 56.01 MVP points for his efforts, the most by any batter in a single IT20 game this summer.
However, this was not his highest score with the bat in the six-month period. That was 84 off 51 balls against Pakistan at Edgbaston in the IT20 series leading up to the World Cup. He also won the Match MVP in that game, recording 29.53 points as England won by 23 runs.
The right-hander’s third Match MVP came in Barbados against Australia. He hit 42 runs from 28 balls and took a stumping to claim 22.10 MVP points.
Meanwhile, his fellow Lancashire teammates Liam Livingstone and Phil Salt finished second and third respectively. Livingstone had an outstanding series against Australia and ended up with 132.28 points, while Salt secured 119.03 points this summer.
The Vitality IT20 Men’s Player of the Summer was selected by the PCA Most Valuable Player Rankings. The formula takes into account expected performance on every ball according to CricViz’s extensive database. The algorithm also considers the historic performances of the venue each fixture is being played at, therefore giving a more accurate reflection of the top performers in the game than traditional batting and bowling averages do.
Buttler joins Joe Root in winning an England Men’s MVP Award this summer. Root was named Rothesay Men’s Test Player of the Summer following some record-breaking months. The Yorkshireman scored 666 runs in red-ball cricket and surpassed Sir Alastair Cook’s tally of most centuries by an English cricketer.
Following the IT20 series against Australia, England play five ODIs against their arch-rivals starting on 19 September.
Their first white-ball winter tour sees them take on the West Indies in three ODIs and five IT20s during October and November. They then travel to India in early 2025 before heading to Pakistan to compete in the ICC Champions Trophy.
View the final IT20 and Overall Men’s International tables here.
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Name of Author: Professional Cricketers Association
The Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA), founded in 1967 by former England fast bowler Fred Rumsey as the Cricketers’ Association, represents past and present first-class cricketers in England and Wales. In the 1970s, the PCA established a standard employment contract and minimum wage for professional cricketers. It also helped create a pension scheme in 1995 and launched the magazine All Out Cricket and the ACE UK Educational Programme in 2002.