Buttler crowned England’s ODI MVP

Jos Buttler has been awarded the PCA Most Valuable Player for England’s One Day International summer after a string of breath-taking performances puts him top of the tree.

Following on from winning the International T20 accolade, the wicket-keeper batsman made it a clean sweep across all white-ball formats after series victories against Australia and India.

Under the leadership of Eoin Morgan, England finished their summer ODIs with series victories over Australia (5-0) and India (2-1) to continue their dominance in the 50-over game.

Despite several individuals providing moments of magic over the summer it was Buttler who finished top, ahead of spinners Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali, with 124 MVP points after two impressive series saw him average 83 with the bat as well as taking nine catches and six stumpings.

Arguably his best innings of the summer, Buttler scored 110* in a run chase of 206 on his home ground to steer England to a 5-0 series whitewash over Australia.

The hard-hitting batsman also hit instrumental knocks of 91* and 54* during the series to demonstrate his destructive match-winning style.

Scoring one half-century in his two innings against India, it was perhaps Buttler’s glove work which received the most praise with four catches and two stumpings across the three-match series. Perhaps most notably Buttler’s sublime one handed grab to remove KL Rahul during the second ODI at Lord’s looked a turning point with the match evenly poised.

Rashid and Moeen finished narrowly behind top spot in the ODI MVP Rankings after producing countless moments of inspiration between them across both series.

Moeen had led the MVP ODI Rankings after the series whitewash over Australia with some devastating bowling displays placing him ahead of the pack. However, it was Rashid who challenged Buttler closest in the end, finishing on 121 ODI MVP points for the summer.

Rashid delivered arguably the ball of the summer to dismiss Virat Kohli during the third ODI against India, which left both the crowd and Kohli stunned as he finished with match-figures of 3-49 from his 10 overs.

Rashid’s consistency was a hall-mark of his success during the summer ODIs as he took a total of 18 wickets at an average of 22. The Yorkshire spinner having the ability to take key wickets at key times throughout – which in turn scores highly in the MVP Rankings.

Rounding up the ODI MVP top 5 were England’s openers Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy who both produced fine individual displays throughout the summer and continued to score at an aggressive rate in all circumstances.

Between them, Bairstow and Roy hit a combined three centuries and two half-centuries to regularly get England off to a good start finishing with 97 and 85 MVP points respectively.

Man of the Series Joe Root put his name in English folklore after a remarkable series with the bat saw the Yorkshireman break all sorts of records.

Back-to-back centuries in the second and third ODI from Root gave him the most MVP points of the series finishing with 48 as he was named PCA MVP Man of the Match for the second and third ODIs against India respectively.

In the second ODI Root batted majestically to top-score with 113 to level the series at Lord’s. However, it was his display at his home ground, Headingley, that broke two records as he won the game with a boundary which took him to an unbeaten 100 which placed him top of England’s all-time ODI century scorers ahead of Marcus Trescothick with 13.

During the same innings, he also contributed to England’s highest scoring ODI partnership with Captain Eoin Morgan who also finished unbeaten on 88, ending his international summer on 71 MVP points overall for his summer ODI.