PCA PRESS RELEASE
James Anderson heads to Perth leading the England Winter MVP ahead of Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes.
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The opening bowler took his first five-wicket haul in Australia, taking his total tally to 47 points for the Ashes campaign so far.
Some ten points behind Anderson is his new ball partner Broad. He has 30.06 bowling points to his name and 4.5 batting points, as he continues to battle hard for England in the Australian heat.
Broad has only played the solitary Test in Perth (2013), but bowled in just the first innings – taking three wickets – before suffering from a bruised foot.
Woakes has shot to third in the winter rankings (33 points), with the Warwickshire all-rounder looking back to his best, after an injury hit 2017.
He finished top of the summer Test MVP rankings in 2016, but has since struggled to make the impact he would have liked through a series of injuries.
However, his pace was up in Adelaide, taking four wickets in the Australian second innings, and he heads to Perth knowing the pitch will offer him slightly more pace and bounce. Outside the top three, Moeen Ali occupies fourth place with 24 points, whilst the captain Joe Root is a point behind in fifth.
Moeen had a better game with the bat then ball, picking up 15 points with the willow, with a cut finger preventing him from having too much of an effect with the Kookaburra in hand.
The overall summer MVP, Root, has the most batting points out of anyone in the side (21.63). A resilient 67 as England chased victory in Adelaide gave the team hopes of an incredible win. The captain now has two fifties on the tour, and knows that converting one of these will put him in a good place to retain the overall MVP with an ODI series to come.
The PCA MVP Rankings system was introduced in 2007, an innovation which provides a more rigorous analysis of player performances than traditional batting and bowling averages. The rankings were designed by the players to identify the match-winners and key influencers of matches throughout the domestic and international season. You can view the early stages of the England Winter MVP rankings here.
