There's practically no change at the top in today's list. This isn't surprising: there were only three West Indian and four Bangladeshi players in yesterday's top 50.

After their emphatic 99-run win over Bangladesh last night, Daren Powell (29 -> 13), Dwayne Bravo (43 -> 24), Ramnaresh Sarwan (47 -> 25), Brian Lara (51 -> 41) and Chris Gayle (64 -> 50) have improved their positions. One really wonders what's happened to Gayle, especially Gayle the batsman. He was widely expected to be in the top 5 or top 10 in view of his explosive batting and wicket-taking bowling ability.

For Bangladesh, Abdur Razzak (32 -> 33), Mashrafe Mortaza (50 -> 35), Saqibul Hasan (44 -> 42), Mohammad Rafique (39 -> 45) and Syed Rasel (54 -> 53) end up as the five most valuable WC 2007 players. It's interesting that they are all bowlers, although Saqibul is also a decent batsman.

Today's contest between Australia and New Zealand is certain to result in changes at the top of the MVP table. Sanath Jayasuriya will lose his top place today and Styris and Hayden have the best chance of displacing him.

Ct: Catches taken | St: Stumpings | Rc: Runs conceded | Bb: Balls bowled | W: Wickets taken | M: Matches played.*Run outs are counted as 1 for a direct hit, and 0.5 if the player is an equal participant in a run out dismissal.

The Chernoff gallery of the top nine World Cup 2007 players appears below. The data below the face is in the following format: total points | total runs / strike rate | wickets / economy rate.

There are three Australians, three South Africans, two Sri Lankans, and one New Zealander in this list. It is very likely that one of these will go on to become the MVP.

Here are the faces of the nine highest scoring batsmen in the Super Eights (batting points | total runs / scoring rate). If two players have scored the same number of runs, the player with the higher points appears first.

Recall that batsmen have round faces and a short and wide nose. They smile more when they score more runs. Batting all-rounders have taller noses, and their faces that aren't so round.

Here are the faces of the nine highest wicket-taking bowlers in the Super Eights (bowling points | wickets / no. of runs conceded per over). If two players have scored the same number of wickets, the player with the higher points appears first.

Bowlers have tapered faces, a tall and thin nose, and bigger ears if they take more wickets.

It's not particularly surprising that eight of the nine bowlers belong to teams that have made it to the semi-finals.

Here are the faces of the nine most successful fielders in the Super Eight ( fielding points | run outs / catches / stumpings).

Fielders who take a lot of catches have wide eyebrows (see "McCullum" or "Sangakkara"), and those that participate in run out dismissals have bigger eyes ("Vincent").

This list, the Chernoff faces and other charts have been prepared by my colleagues Debasish Ghosh and K Anil Kumar of Cranes Software International Limited using the SYSTAT software.