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Shikhar Dhawan is MVP of India-WI series

December 02, 2013 12:31 IST

With a strike rate of 115, Shikhar Dhawan is the MVP from the India-West Indies series according to Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji

Just when it seemed as though Shikhar Dhawan was falling off from his incredible batting ‘high’, he returned to top form with a splendid ODI century to help India clinch the ODI series against West Indies.

Shikhar DhawanWith a series aggregate of 159 runs, at a strike rate of over 115, Dhawan emerged as the series’ most valuable player with a most valuable player index (MVPI) of 278.

The 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 + bowling + fielding performance in terms of a ‘run equivalent’. 

Table 1 lists the MVPI of all the players who played in the ODI series. It confirms that it was a pretty close series with 6 out of the top 10 players on the list being West Indians. But 4 out of the top 5 were Indians.

Notice too that IPL players tended to perform better in the series. This shouldn’t be such a surprise because the matches were played in India and the dividing line between ODI and T20 cricket is getting blurred.

The table shows that Suresh Raina continues to struggle with his batting, and if he hadn’t got those 3 wickets his MVPI would have been dismal. And it now appears that Ravindra Jadeja makes it to the final eleven only because of his bowling. Where have his big runs vanished?

Table 1: Most valuable players in the India-West Indies series ( Nov 21-27, 2013)

 

Rank

Player

Team

Runs

Strike Rate

W

Eco

M

MVPI

1

S Dhawan

IND

159

115.2

0

-

3

278

2

MS Dhoni

IND

87

124.3

0

-

3

266

3

Virat Kohli

IND

204

101

0

-

3

240

4

Dwayne Bravo

WI

46

70.8

2

6.4

3

217

5

R Ashwin

IND

19

190

6

4.2

3

205

6

Darren Sammy

WI

105

116.7

1

7.8

3

202

7

Ravi Rampaul

WI

1

7.1

7

5.5

3

179

8

Johnson Charles

WI

65

103.2

0

-

3

178

9

Darren Bravo

WI

160

87

0

-

3

167

10

Jason Holder

WI

23

71.9

3

6.6

3

157

11

B Kumar

IND

1

100

3

5.6

3

150

12

Kieran Powell

WI

129

85.4

0

-

2

132

13

R Jadeja

IND

12

38.7

5

4.3

3

128

14

Lendl Simmons

WI

104

81.3

0

5.1

3

127

15

Suresh Raina

IND

57

79.2

3

4.8

3

124

16

Mohammed Shami

IND

0

-

4

5.7

3

117

17

Marlon Samuels

WI

103

74.6

0

-

3

116

18

Rohit Sharma

IND

88

77.2

0

2

3

75

19

Yuvraj Singh

IND

99

65.1

0

-

3

71

20

Mohit Sharma

IND

0

-

1

7

2

53

21

Sunil Narine

WI

0

0

2

4.3

3

46

22

Veerasammy Permaul

WI

0

0

1

6.1

2

39

23

Amit Mishra

IND

0

-

0

-

0

25

24

Jaydev Unadkat

IND

0

-

0

6.5

1

9

25

Narsingh Deonarine

WI

4

28.6

0

7.5

1

1

Runs (scored) ' 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.

Table 2, which shows India’s most valuable players in the 24 matches played so far in India’s 2013-14 season, tells a bigger story. Just three batsmen, each having scored more than 1000 runs in double quick time, are bearing the entire batting burden. India don’t even require too many runs from M S Dhoni, even though he was till recently the world’s best ODI batsman and holds the 6th best ODI batsman’s place even now!

Most of the players who helped India win the 2011 World Cup have faded away! And yet India continues to lead the ODI rankings by a wide margin. There’s a story embedded within that needs to be told.

Table 2: India’s most valuable players in the 2013-14 ODI season (24 matches played; 1 abandoned)

 

Rank

Player

Runs

Strike Rate

W

Eco

Ct St

Run Outs

M

MVPI

1

R Jadeja

239

77.9

38

4.7

8

2

24

1359

2

S Dhawan

1150

98.1

0

5.9

11

1

23

1210

3

Virat Kohli

1069

102.3

0

6.1

9

1

24

1193

4

Rohit Sharma

1072

81.9

0

4.9

4

0.5

23

1044

5

R Ashwin

97

89

29

5.3

11

0

19

770

6

B Kumar

41

61.2

21

3.7

9

1.3

17

659

7

MS Dhoni

431

110.2

0

6.6

23

2.2

16

632

8

Suresh Raina

394

90.6

5

5.4

14

1.6

24

568

9

Ishant Sharma

5

29.4

20

1.8

4

0.3

13

559

10

Amit Mishra

9

128.6

18

7.7

2

0

6

524

11

Vinay Kumar

43

89.6

10

5.4

3

0.3

9

464

12

M Shami

6

300

17

18

3

0

12

428

13

Dinesh Karthik

255

70.4

0

4.2

16

0.5

15

301

14

Jaydev Unadkat

0

0

8

0

0

1

7

287

15

Umesh Yadav

0

0

11

0

1

1

9

265

16

Yuvraj Singh

118

66.7

2

4

1

1.3

9

136

17

Mohit Sharma

0

0

4

0

1

0

4

109

18

Murali Vijay

57

89.1

0

5.3

2

0

3

71

Runs (scored) ' 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.

Image: Shikhar Dhawan

Photograph: BCCI

Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji