Warwickshire all-rounder Keith Barker has taken the opportunity to extend his lead at the top of the Specsavers County Championship Professional Cricketers’ Association Most Valuable Player Rankings.
Although rain blighted Warwickshire’s drawn match against Hampshire at Edgbaston this week, Barker took two wickets, both in the top four, in Hampshire’s only innings to earn 11 rankings points.
Those took Barker to 258 PCA MVP points for the season and moved him 45 points clear of Lancashire’s Kyle Jarvis, who was not in action this week, in the County Championship rankings.
In the overall PCA MVP Barker is now in ninth place, a point behind Durham’s in-form opening batsman Keaton Jennings and 77 away from leader Joe Leach, the Worcestershire all-rounder.
Barker’s Warwickshire team-mate Jeetan Patel is tenth in the overall PCA MVP with 254 points, which include a haul of 13 from the Hampshire match in which the former New Zealand off-spinner took three wickets.
The PCA MVP was introduced in 2007 and is designed by the players to find the cricketers who really win matches by combining all aspects of a player’s performance to give a ranking in relation to his peers.
The revised MVP formula gives full credit to those players whose performances improve their team’s chances of winning. Points are accrued for all runs scored and wickets taken; these are then adjusted within the context of the match to take into account strike rates and economy rates.
Runs gain more points if they are scored quickly or in low-scoring contests. Top order wickets taken at the start of the innings are judged more valuable than those that fall later, and bowlers who bowl their overs cheaply (in the context of the match) are given due reward for doing so.
The weightings in the revised formula have been scaled so as to provide continuity with previous seasons, ensuring that the value of an MVP point this year is equivalent to those allocated under previous formulae.
The PCA MVP leader board can be viewed here.
