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Ajmal MVP of India-Pak ODIs, Dhoni 5th

Last updated on: January 10, 2013 13:27 IST

Even though the record books show a 2-1 series win for Pakistan, there is little doubt that Misbah-ul- Haq's team dominated the recently-concluded One-Day International series.

This becomes evident when we look at the most valuable player index (MVPI) table. The first four places have all been bagged by Pakistan cricketers, while India's most valuable performer, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is placed fifth.

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Saeed AjmalThe MVPI formula picks out batsmen who score a lot of runs at a high strike rate and bowlers who take a lot of wickets at a low economy rate, and expresses a player's overall batting plus bowling plus fielding performance in terms of a 'run equivalent'.

Mohammed Hafeez, for example, has a MVPI of 237; this means that Hafeez scored 237 'runs' in the series if his batting + bowling + fielding performance is expressed only in terms of 'runs' (the break-up is 106 for batting, 126 for bowling and 5 for fielding).

Table 1 lists the MVPI of all the players who played in the ODI series and it clearly shows that Pakistan bowlers and opening batsmen won the series for them.

Table 1: Most valuable players in the India-Pakistan ODI series:

Player Name Team Runs Top score Strike Rate W Eco M MVPI
1 Saeed Ajmal Pak 8 7 72.7 8 2.9 3 274
2 Junaid Khan Pak 0 0 0.0 8 3.7 3 240
3 Mohammad Hafeez Pak 97 76 91.5 3 3.3 3 237
4 Nasir Jamshed Pak 241 106 75.3 0 - 3 215
5 MS Dhoni IND 203 113 75.5 0 - 3 209
6 Ishant Sharma IND 7 5 25.9 7 3.7 3 204
7 Ravindra Jadeja IND 40 27 64.5 4 3.0 2 173
8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar IND 2 2 16.7 5 4.3 3 140
9 R Ashwin IND 34 31 54.0 3 4.3 3 116
10 Shoaib Malik Pak 63 34 80.8 1 2.0 3 104
11 Umar Gul Pak 28 17 62.2 3 4.7 3 102
12 Younis Khan Pak 74 58 77.9 0 - 3 74
13 Mohammad Irfan Pak 0 0 0.0 3 5.1 3 69
14 Suresh Raina IND 92 43 48.4 1 8.6 3 61
15 Shami Ahmed IND 0 0 0.0 1 2.6 1 43
16 Virender Sehwag IND 35 31 64.8 0 - 2 43
17 Yuvraj Singh IND 34 23 75.6 0 7.2 3 28
18 Umar Akmal Pak 25 25 50.0 0 - 1 23
19 Misbah-ul-Haq Pak 57 39 51.4 0 - 3 22
20 Kamran Akmal Pak 0 0 0.0 0 - 3 21
21 Ashok Dinda IND 0 0 0.0 1 5.4 2 17
22 Gautam Gambhir IND 34 15 49.3 0 - 3 11
23 Ajinkya Rahane IND 4 4 36.4 0 - 1 4
24 Rohit Sharma IND 4 4 28.6 0 - 1 1
25 Virat Kohli IND 13 7 41.9 0 7.4 3 -7
26 Azhar Ali Pak 11 9 22.9 0 - 2 -18

Runs (scored) | Top score | Strike rate | W: Wickets taken | Eco: Economy rate | | M: Matches played | MVPI: Most valuable player index = sum of batting, bowling and fielding points |*Run outs are counted as 1 (wicket) for a direct hit, and 0.5 (wicket) if the fielder is an equal participant in a run out dismissal.

The next table shows India's most valuable players in the eight matches played so far in India's 2012-13 season. Virat Kohli loses his top place after his shockingly poor performance against Pakistan. Also it is clear that India sorely missed the injured Irfan Pathan. Finally note that Virender Sehwag's performance isn't as bad as the selectors seem to think that forced them to drop the veteran opener for the England ODI series.

Table 2: India's most valuable players in the 2012-13 ODI season (8 matches so far):

Player Runs Six Four Strike Rate Bat-pts W Eco Bowl-pts Field-pts M MVPI
1 MS Dhoni 338 9 26 84.3 341.8 0 - 0 70 8 412
2 Virat Kohli 309 1 27 84 311.3 0 5.3 -1.8 27.5 8 337
3 Suresh Raina 266 4 18 78.9 251.2 1 7.8 7.8 60 8 319
4 R Ashwin 57 0 5 68.7 44.8 8 4.4 243 5 8 293
5 Irfan Pathan 76 0 6 92.7 83.7 8 5.3 189 5 5 278
6 G Gambhir 292 0 24 77.7 270.7 0 - 0 5 8 276
7 V Sehwag 183 0 22 91 198.5 1 4.7 29 22.5 6 250
8 Ishant Sharma 7 0 1 25.9 -8.5 7 3.7 213 0 3 204
9 Manoj Tiwary 86 0 8 81.1 83.7 4 6.8 80 25 2 189
10 R Jadeja 40 2 0 64.5 28.3 4 3 140 5 2 173
11 B Kumar 2 0 0 16.7 -6 5 4.3 146 0 3 140
12 Zaheer Khan 2 0 0 50 0.7 4 5.6 75 15 5 91
13 Ashok Dinda 0 0 0 0 -1.7 5 6.2 78.2 0 5 77
14 Shami Ahmed 0 0 0 0 -4.2 1 2.6 47 0 1 43
15 Yuvraj Singh 34 0 4 75.6 30.5 0 7.2 -13 10 3 28
16 Rahul Sharma 0 0 0 - 0 1 5.6 20 0 1 20
17 Ajinkya Rahane 13 0 2 46.4 2.7 0 - 0 10 2 13
18 Rohit Sharma 17 0 1 33.3 -8.5 0 3.7 12 5 6 9
19 Umesh Yadav 0 0 0 0 -2.5 2 8.1 6 0 2 4
20 Pragyan Ojha 5 0 0 27.8 -5 1 7.5 8.2 0 2 3

Runs (scored) | Sixes | Fours | Strike rate | Bat-pts: Batting points | W: Wickets taken | Eco: Economy rate | Bowl-pts: Bowling points | Field-pts: fielding points | M: Matches played | MVPI: Most valuable player index = sum of batting, bowling and fielding points | | *Run outs are counted as 1 (wicket) for a direct hit, and 0.5 (wicket) if the fielder is an equal participant in a run out dismissal.
Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji