England duo make MVP headway

Ollie Robinson and Rory Burns are out in front in the PCA Test Most Valuable Player Rankings after a busy weekend which saw the first Test Match of the summer played alongside both LV= Insurance County Championship and Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy fixtures.

Robinson claimed match figures of 7-101 on debut, just missing out on the famous Lord’s honours board with 4-75 in the first innings, to score 41.4 MVP points and take the early lead in the Test MVP at the start of a summer which will see England compete in six further Test Matches.

Whilst Robinson was England’s standout bowler in what was his first Test Match, opener Rory Burns showed his class in making a battling 132 during England’s first innings.

The eight-hour knock saw Burns face 297 balls and score 48% of England’s total of 275. It was enough to see the left-hander earn 37.1 MVP points and sit second in the Test MVP behind Robinson, albeit 21 points clear of the next highest batter in skipper Joe Root.

Dom Sibley is in third position, an unbeaten 60 on the final day helping him to 17 MVP points, whilst Root (16.1 MVP points) and Mark Wood (10.5), who produced an awesome bowling spell of 3-7 on day two, complete the top five.

It means that there is an even balance of bat and ball in the MVP standings going into the second and final Test Match of the series against an impressive New Zealand side, which begins at Edgbaston on Thursday.

Whilst England played out a draw in the first Test Match of the summer at Lord’s, Leicestershire’s Callum Parkinson put in the standout performance from the latest round of LV= Insurance County Championship fixtures as eight rain-affected games took place across the country.

After making an unbeaten 24 with the bat, Parkinson claimed match figures of 10-108 – including a five-wicket haul in both innings – to inspire his side to an innings and 93-run victory over high flyers Gloucestershire at Grace Road.

Parkinson earned 60.3 MVP points for his efforts, comfortably the highest individual score of the round, and the spin bowler now moves up to 23rd position in the Championship MVP.

Elsewhere, Keith Barker displayed inspired form as he removed six of Somerset’s top seven on his way to figures of 6-72 at Taunton. Also chipping in 33 with the bat during Hampshire’s first innings total of 311, Barker earned 40.3 MVP points and is now his side’s fourth-ranked bowler in the Championship MVP.

The standout batting performance of the weekend came from Dawid Malan as his mammoth 199 inspired a dramatic innings and 30-run win for Yorkshire over Sussex on the final evening at Headingley.

Made all the more impressive by the fact that it was his first innings of the domestic season, Malan scored 36.9 MVP points during his MVP of the Match display.

At the top of the Rankings, Darren Stevens has moved from seventh position into third after claiming figures of 5-73 during Kent’s draw with Northants, whilst David Bedingham was the only new entry into the top 10 after making 121 in his side’s 10-wicket win over Worcestershire – his third First-Class century of the season.

Craig Overton, Simon Harmer, Stevens, Matt Critchley and Ryan Higgins make up the top five of both the Overall and Championship MVP going into the beginning of the Vitality Blast, which gets underway with four fixtures on Wednesday.

Eve Jones made the highest Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy MVP score on a weekend which also saw four fixtures take place in the women’s 50-over competition.

Jones’ 55 at the top of the order inspired Central Sparks to a 120-run victory over reigning champions Southern Vipers at Hove, with the opener earning 25.3 MVP points in the process.

Alice Davidson-Richards (21.9 MVP points), Tammy Beaumont (20.7) and Katherine Brunt (13.1) were also named MVP of the Match for their sides, the latter claiming 3-11 as Northern Diamonds bowled out Sunrisers for just 53 during an excellent team performance in Cambridge.

After three rounds of the competition, the current RHF Trophy MVP top five is dominated by England Women stars, with Amy Jones (68.3 MVP points) leading from Sarah Glenn (56.3), Heather Knight (54.5), Danni Wyatt (51.5) and Kirstie Gordon (50.5).

The MVP was designed by the PCA in conjunction with the players to identify the top performers in the game. Relaunched in 2021 with assistance from cricket’s leading analytics experts CricViz, the algorithm takes into account key match-defining contributions on top of traditional batting and bowling averages to give the most accurate picture of the best performers in the game.

An MVP will be named for each domestic competition throughout the season, as well as a cross-format Overall MVP come the end of the campaign.

For more information on the brand-new MVP Rankings, contact the PCA’s Head of Communications Luke Reynolds at luke.reynolds@thepca.co.uk or the PCA’s Communications Executive Peter Clark at peter.clark@thepca.co.uk.

View the brand-new MVP Rankings and keep up-to-date with the latest MVP news by following @pcaMVP on Twitter.