PCA PRESS RELEASE
Samit Patel has capped a memorable season for Nottinghamshire and himself by winning the Professional Cricketers’ Association Most Valuable Player Award.
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The England all-rounder earned most points in all three domestic competitions to finish top of the PCA MVP Rankings with 535 points, 54 points ahead of Warwickshire’s New Zealand off-spinner Jeetan Patel who topped the PCA MVP in 2014 and 2016.
Patel played a major part in helping Nottinghamshire complete a white ball trophy double of the Royal London One Day Cup and NatWest T20 Blast as well as winning promotion in the Specsavers County Championship following relegation 12 months ago.
He received a cheque for £10,000 from PCA Chief Executive David Leatherdale at Trent Bridge today.
“I’ve never won it before, it’s a great achievement which really caps off our year. It’s testament to all our lads that we have got two trophies in the bag and got promoted,” Patel said.
“I’ve finished second a couple of times in the MVP and to get over the extra hurdle and win it rounds off a great year.
“I follow the MVP. It’s good to have a look to see where you are and where you can better. I pride myself on that.”
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 season.
Patel finished second in the PCA MVP Rankings in both white ball competitions, a point behind Glamorgan’s Colin Ingram in the Royal London One-Day Cup and 27 behind Derbyshire’s Wayne Madsen in T20 cricket.
He made two centuries, including a brilliant 122 from 123 balls in the semi-final victory over Essex at Chelmsford, and three half centuries in 11 Royal London One-Day Cup matches and took nine wickets including three for 51 to help Nottinghamshire defeat Surrey in the final at Lord’s.
“The run chase at Chelmsford in that semi-final of the Royal London Cup stand out. It was a pretty daunting task to chase 370 but the fact that we remained calm all the way through that was remarkable in itself,” Patel said.
Patel was also prolific in the NatWest T20 Blast with six scores of 35 or more, including 64 in the final against Birmingham Bears at Edgbaston. He also took 16 wickets in the competition and was Player of the Match in the final.
Patel’s championship season included back-to-back double centuries against Gloucestershire at Bristol and Leicestershire at Trent Bridge in June. He made 906 runs in the four-day competition and took 19 wickets with a best of three for 17 against Northamptonshire at Trent Bridge in August.
In a season when Nottinghamshire were plagued by injuries, Patel played in every match in every competition and during the season he became the first player to reach the 5,000 career points landmark since the PCA MVP Rankings were introduced in 2007. Kent all-rounder Darren Stevens became the second earlier this month.
Patel is in contention to follow up his PCA MVP prize with the NatWest PCA Players’ Player Award, which is voted for by all current county professionals. He has been shortlisted along with Essex seamer Jamie Porter, Glamorgan’s Ingram and Surrey’s former Sri Lanka batsman Kumar Sangakkara. The winner will be presented with the Reg Hayter Cup at the NatWest PCA Awards at the Roundhouse in London next Wednesday.
Patel’s white ball form, including 31 rankings points on NatWest T20 Blast Finals Day, helped him withstand a late surge from his namesake from Warwickshire who ended the season with 125 PCA MVP points in four championship matches in September including 80 in last week’s defeat by Yorkshire at Headingley.
He followed up a century, the third of his career, in Warwickshire’s first innings with six wickets in Yorkshire’s second innings to finish with the third highest match haul of points in a championship match in the history of the PCA MVP Rankings.
