Broad the Test MVP as Overton hits top spot

Stuart Broad has been named the PCA Most Valuable Player for Test Match cricket after another golden summer for the England seamer, helping his country to series victories over the West Indies and Pakistan.

Despite not being selected for the first Test of the summer against the West Indies, Broad finished top of the Test MVP Rankings for the second consecutive summer with 146 points.

In his five appearances, the fast-bowler took a staggering 29 wickets at 13 apiece proving any doubters wrong. The 34-year-old also became the fourth seam bowler in Test Match history to pass the 500-wicket milestone following on from England teammate James Anderson as well as Glenn McGrath and Courtney Walsh.

Broad finished above Ben Stokes who continued his impressive form finishing second in the rankings despite not featuring in the final two Test Matches against Pakistan.

The all-rounder finished with the highest average MVP points per Test with 30, finishing with a total of 120 points after his four Test appearances.

The aforementioned Anderson finished his summer on a high as he took his 600th Test Match wicket – the first seam bowler to achieve such a feat. The Lancastrian bowler moved from 593 to 600 in the final Test where he achieved match figures of 7-89 to finish with 92 MVP Points in fourth place.

As far as individual performances go, Kent batsman Zak Crawley’s MVP Man of the Match performance in the final Test of the summer will be up there with the best. The 22-year old had a previous Test high-score of 76 before his stunning knock of 267 – a first-class career best and the 10th highest Test score for an England player.

His partnership with Jos Buttler was an English record for the fifth wicket as they shared a stand of 359, with the wicketkeeper batsman also recording his career best Test total – 152.

Buttler’s second Test century was another indication of a man in form as he followed up his performance in the first Test victory against Pakistan. Some stunning grabs in the final Test also vindicated his selection behind the stumps as he finished fifth in the Test Rankings with 83 MVP points.

The MVP Rankings were created by the PCA in conjunction with the players in order to determine the match-winners in any given fixture.

On top of traditional batting and bowling averages, bonus points are awarded for key contributions such as scoring a high proportion of your team’s runs, claiming top-order wickets and taking catches in the field.
Broad’s combination of important wickets and lower-order runs separated him from his teammates.

According to the metric, England’s top performers over the summer of Test cricket have been Broad (146 MVP points), followed by Ben Stokes (120), Chris Woakes (102), James Anderson (90) and Jos Buttler (83)

Broad currently sits top of the Overall England MVP Rankings too, however, with white ball cricket only left this summer, all eyes will be on those selected for the T20I series against Pakistan and the white-ball fixtures against Australia.

Meanwhile, across the domestic circuit, Craig Overton put in another inspired performance to move to top spot in the MVP Rankings.

Overton took nine wickets in the match at less than six apiece to overtake the 2019 MVP winner, Simon Harmer with only one Bob Willis Trophy group game remaining.

The nine wickets also takes the fast-bowlers tally to 23 for the summer as he averages less than 10 with the ball with Somerset winning three matches from their four group games to put them top of the central group.

Harmer was left frustrated with their match abandoned with Essex only three down in the first innings with Harmer unable to add any meaningful MVP points having not batted or bowled in the contest, putting him four points behind top spot.

The individual performance of the week was found at Blackfinch New Road as Will Rhodes recorded his career best total with a maiden double-century in his side’s first innings total of 355-9 declared.

The Warwickshire skipper also reached 42 not out in the second innings before poor weather abandoned proceedings to leave the opening batsman with a staggering 59 MVP points as he moved up to fifth in the table.

Forty-four year-old Darren Stevens still sits above Rhodes after he helped his Kent side to victory against rivals Surrey. ‘Stevo’ took seven more wickets to confirm his position near the top of the rankings on 120 MVP points.

There was fireworks in Northamptonshire as they won their first fixture of the Bob Willis Trophy against Glamorgan. However, the fireworks came courtesy of Glamorgan’s Marchant de Lange who smashed his way to a 62-ball century – a knock that contained eight maximums.

The attention now turns to the start of the Vitality Blast on Thursday before the final group game in four-day cricket with the race to the Lord’s final and the winner of the Bob Willis Trophy MVP very much up for grabs.

Keep up-to-date with all the latest MVP news by following the @pcaMVP on Twitter.