Photo Credit: PCA
Rankings reset as England begin winter 2020/21 schedule.
The PCA England Most Valuable Rankings will be reset on Friday ahead of the Three Lions’ first fixture since the end of the 2020 summer season.
Eoin Morgan’s men take on South Africa in the first of three IT20s at Six Gun Grill Newlands on Friday evening, and the PCA will be keeping track of the top performers throughout the series using its purpose-built MVP Rankings algorithm.
Though much of England’s 2020/21 schedule is yet to be finalised, there will definitely be an ODI, IT20 and Overall MVP at the very least following the ongoing tour of South Africa, which includes the IT20 series as well as three ODIs.
Looking ahead to the three-match IT20 series, skipper Morgan will have the benefit of a full-strength squad as England continue to build towards the ICC World Twenty20 in India in October next year.
The ICC’s number one-ranked IT20 batsman Dawid Malan will be looking to make it two IT20 MVPs in two after he claimed the award in the summer by scoring 51 MVP points across six fixtures against Pakistan and Australia.
Despite his status as the world’s leading 20-over batsman, the left-hander will be looking to nail down his place in the side alongside more established names such as Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow, all three of whom have enjoyed stints in the IPL since the end of the summer.
Things are less certain in the bowling department, with Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Adil Rashid, Reece Topley, Mark Wood and Chris Jordan, who is three scalp away from becoming England’s all-time leading wicket-taker in IT20s, jostling for the five bowling positions in the side.
Rashid was England’s top performing IT20 bowler over the summer with 41.5 MVP points, whilst Moeen and Jordan earned 29 and 28 each.
The fast bowlers in particular will be looking forward to playing on fast, bouncy pitches in Cape Town and Paarl, where the second IT20 is due to be played, with a winter’s worth of MVP points up for grabs from Friday.
It will be the first time the PCA MVP has been used in an international fixture since England rounded off their summer schedule with a three-match ODI series against Australia back in September.
NatWest PCA Men’s Player of the Year Chris Woakes was named the Overall MVP for summer 2020 after the final fixture of that series as a reward for the consistency of his performances across all formats during the coronavirus-affected season. Meanwhile, Stuart Broad, David Willey and Malan were named the Test, ODI and IT20 MVPs respectively.
View the summer 2020 PCA England MVP Rankings.
Find out more about the PCA MVP Rankings.
Keep up-to-date with all the latest MVP news by following the @pcaMVP on Twitter.
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.
