Photo Credit: Professional Cricketers’ Association
Hampshire captain tops MVP Rankings to give him Player of the Year and £2,500 prize.
James Vince has won the 2022 Vitality Blast Player of the Year courtesy of finishing the competition as the number one player, statistically.
The Hampshire Hawks captain led his team to the Vitality Blast title and ended the tournament as the leading run scorer, emphasising his immense ability in the shortest format. Vince was presented with the trophy following the Vitality Blast final at Edgbaston.
Hampshire beat Lancashire by one-run in an epic final game of the tournament. Hampshire set 152-8 in their twenty overs and Lancashire failed to chase it down. Vince took a catch a got a run in the final to further secure his spot of the top of the rankings.
The Player of the Year is selected by the PCA Most Valuable Player Rankings, with the 31-year-old being high up in the table for much of the tournament. The formula enables players to score or lose MVP points on every ball based on their expected performance for that ball in comparison to CricViz’s extensive historical database of 20-over fixtures, with the venue being played at also taken into account.
Topping the run scoring with an incredible 678 runs with an average of 48 at a strike-rate of 146, Vince is certainly a worthy winner securing 241 points on the Vitality Blast MVP table, a truly phenomenal season from Vince.
The Hampshire opener scored two hundreds and three fifties in the competition earning him three Match MVP awards in the process. The first of his hundreds coming against Kent which earnt him 38 MVP points and the second century of his campaign was the highest score in the Vitality Blast this season with 129 not out against Somerset at Taunton which won him 40 MVP points.
Vince who has now won the title three times said: “The final was a great game of cricket, a few things were getting in the way but eventually we got there, after the first four games we’ve been immense, I owe a lot to the guys for their efforts.
“Our bowling attack has been top draw during the competition and we took wickets at the right times.
“We have a never say die attitude and we never feel like we’re beaten.
“It’s not just about me because everyone has made contributions this year.”
Somerset’s Rilee Rossouw came extremely close to winning the award 11 points behind on 230. The Somerset batter scored 623 runs in the Vitality Blast at an incredible strike-rate of 192.
Rossouw won an impressive four Match MVP awards, the most impressive coming against Derbyshire in the quarter-final where he scored 93 off 36 balls with seven sixes at a strike-rate of 258. However he couldn’t quite get his team to the final as they were beaten by Hampshire in the second semi.
Another Blast winner finished third on the Vitality Blast MVP standings with Hampshire’s James Fuller scoring 229 points. The all-rounder scored 290 runs in the competition with a strike-rate of 149. With 23 wickets to his name and best figures of 4-17 it’s easy to see why he finished in the top three.
Fuller also won three Match MVP awards, one of which came against Gloucestershire where he picked up 2-23 and scored 22 off 14 balls.
Yorkshire’s Adam Lyth finished fourth in the Vitality Blast MVP table gaining 197 points. Lyth scored 525 runs at an average of 35 with a strike-rate of 177.
He also three Match MVP awards, the best of which coming against Durham scoring 81 off 46 balls.
View the final Vitality Blast MVP table here
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.
