Photo Credit: Professional Cricketers’ Association
Superchargers and Rockets stars win trophy and cash prize.
Adam Lyth and Nat Sciver have won the Hundred PCA MVP Men’s and Women’s respective Player of the Year awards by statistically being the number one players.
The left-handed opener, Lyth, has been in stellar form during this summer’s Hundred competition with important knocks throughout the tournament. With the most impressive being 79 off 33, away to the Oval Invincibles, which included three fours and eight sixes.
The Hundred Player of the Year is selected by the PCA Most Valuable Player Rankings. A formula that enables players to score or lose points, depending on their performance compared to CricViz’s extensive database, of the outcome of every delivery within each match. The venue and stage of the tournament also plays a role in the formula calculations.
Scoring 299 runs, which included three half-centuries at an average of 38 and the highest strike-rate of any of the top 15 batters meant that Lyth topped the table for the Men’s competition. A worthy winner having scored 135 MVP points.
In second place was Oval Invincibles Will Jacks, just seven MVP points behind the winner and the highest placed player from the final was Phil Salt in third position. The Manchester Originals wicketkeeper-batter ended his competition with 342 runs from nine matches. His fantastic form that he carried from the summer internationals for the England 50-over side has earned him a call up to the England T20 tour of Pakistan and a spot on the plane to Australia for the World Cup later this year.
Top run scorer of the entire competition was Trent Rockets opener Dawid Malan. The England batter scored a heroic 98 not out in the group stage of the competition against fellow finalists, Manchester Originals. A knock that came in only 44 deliveries, which included thee fours and nine sixes. His 98 is the third highest score in the Men’s Hundred, following Oval Invincibles’ Will Jacks 108*, and Birmingham Phoenix’s Will Smeed who scored the Hundred’s first ever century (101*).
Lyth picks up the £5,000 cash prize for finishing first in the MVP points tally, whilst also adding his total to the Domestic Men’s MVP points ladder. The winner of the Overall MVP points tally takes home the £10,000 prize which is decided at the end of the season.
In the women’s competition, the Trent Rockets all-rounder finished the tournament with 228 runs and 6 wickets from six matches.
Sciver’s team were edged out in the eliminator by eventual runners up Southern Brave, but Sciver’s thrilling knock of 72 off only 36 balls was the highlight, which also meant she claimed the Match MVP. Requiring 24 off the final set, Sciver hit a two, then three sixes in a row to put the Rockets in a position to win the match, needing four off the last ball of the 100. After miss-hitting a ball to mid-off, Sciver and partner Sarah Glenn could only achieve one run, leaving the Rockets two short. A heroic innings, nonetheless.
The Player of the Year is selected by the PCA Most Valuable Player Rankings, with Sciver being in the top ten for most of the competition. The formula awards MVP points on every ball that a player is involved with, and compared to their expected performance in comparison to CricViz’s extensive database of data, with the venue and stage of the tournament being taken into account.
At the top of the run-charts was Northern Superchargers and South African batter, Laura Wolvaardt with 286. The overseas star scored her runs from six group-stage matches.
However, Sciver ended the competition as the player with the most batting points, finishing on 73, three points ahead of her England teammate Sophia Dunkley. To underline her credentials as one of the premier all-rounders in the world, the 30-year-old also came 15th with the ball.
Finishing with 111 points, Sciver topped the table, followed by Oval Invincibles duo Alice Capsey (94) and Lauren Winfield-Hill (84). Both Capsey and Winfield-Hill had a chance of closing the gap on Sciver during the Hundred final, played at Lord’s and almost did so. The newly capped England all-rounder took two wickets for just 17 runs from 20 balls and then hit 25 off just 17 balls, however, it wasn’t quite enough to topple Sciver.
The Match MVP in the final went to Marizanne Kapp’s unbeaten 37 off 33 balls which steered the Invincibles to their second Hundred title.
Domestic women’s cricket now turns back to the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, with each of the teams having three matches left in the group stages. The 50-over competition also has a £2,500 prize pot for the winner of the MVP with points accumulated also added to the Overall MVP which includes all cross-format domestic cricket and whoever comes top of the pile will receive a £7,500 prize.
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.
