England and Warwickshire wicketkeeper-batsman Amy Jones is statistically her country’s PCA Most Valuable Player of the 2018/19 winter after finishing the campaign with four fifties in her final six games.
The Sutton Coldfield-born 25-year-old narrowly edged ahead of long-term leader of the overall MVP, Natalie Sciver, with just one game remaining and held onto her lead with a half-century and a catch behind the stumps.
Her performances on the tour of Asia went a long way to help England to 10 straight victories, an impressive feat in unfamiliar conditions, which started in India. Despite starting slowly and losing the opening two One Day Internationals, England fought back to take the last game of the series before completing whitewashes in the T20Is against India and winning all six limited overs games in Sri Lanka that followed.
It was Warwickshire’s Jones who has scooped the main accolade for the winter with 120 MVP points, just 1.86 ahead of her teammate Sciver who continues to show her importance to Heather Knight’s team. The 26-year-old went past 1,000 T20I runs in the final outing, which resulted in a 96 run win and impressed with bat and ball across the winter which started with the ICC Women’s World T20.
Losing finalists in the West Indies, it was Sciver who was England’s player of the tournament according to the MVP formula, which is designed to identify the match-winners and key influencers of matches.
A more rigorous analysis of player performances than traditional batting and bowling averages, points are accrued for all runs scored and wickets taken, these are then adjusted within the context of the match.
Catches, run-outs and stumpings are also accounted for as well as bonus points for captains and players who are on the victorious side.
Jones was statistically England’s third best performer of the world tournament and went from strength to strength in the subcontinent, which also saw her also come top of the pile in the T20I MVP Rankings, ahead of Danni Wyatt.
Wyatt was a consistently solid performer and averaged 45 with the bat in the shortest format of the game to end just nine points behind Jones and you can see the final T20I table here.
Long-term leader of the overall MVP, Sciver did end the winter as the ODI MVP thanks to her consistent performances against India and Sri Lanka. The all-rounder played in all six games and narrowly edged out Katherine Brunt who returned from fitness with a bang in Asia.
The 33-year-old missed the World T20 through injury but returned against India, with two economical performances in the opening two games, she ended the series by taking her fifth five-wicket haul of her ODI career. Brunt ended with 48.49 MVP points, 2.31 behind Sciver who was in fine form with the bat, hitting scores of 44 and 85 against India then 93 off 73 balls in the opening win against Sri Lanka which set the tone for the tour.
However, it was Jones who was a consistent match-winner for her country and takes the crown as the overall winter MVP and she will be going into the summer which sees England host the Windies before battling it for the Ashes full of confidence.
