Jeetan Patel, winner of the Professional Cricketers’ Association Most Valuable Player Award in two of the last three years, has made a late bid to defend his title.
The New Zealand off-spinner produced a spectacular all-round performance in the Bears’ Specsavers County Championship match against Yorkshire at Headingley where he made a century in the first innings and took six wickets in Yorkshire’s second innings.
Patel earned 30 points for his century, the third of his career and second against Yorkshire, added 11 more points for taking two wickets in Yorkshire’s first innings and 34 more for his first five wicket haul of the season.
PCA
Despite Patel’s heroics, Warwickshire were still beaten by two wickets but his outstanding individual effort took him to third place in the list of all-time best individual performances in the County Championship since the PCA MVP Rankings system was introduced in 2007.
Patel earned 30 points for his century, the third of his career and second against Yorkshire, added 11 more points for taking two wickets in Yorkshire’s first innings and 34 more for his first five wicket haul of the season.
He ended the match with 80.46 rankings points, a total that has only been beaten by Middlesex off-spinner Ollie Rayner (80.81 points) against Surrey in 2013 and Kent batsman Martin van Jaarsveld who amassed 81.59 points against Surrey in 2008 when he scored a century in each innings and took five wickets.
Patel’s haul at Headingley took him past 2,000 career rankings points in the County Championship and to second place in this season’s overall PCA MVP on 458 points in all competitions, 65 points behind Nottinghamshire all-rounder Samit Patel, the long-time leader.
With only one round of County Championship matches to play, Samit Patel remains favourite to win this year’s PCA MVP Award and a £10,000 prize, but his last five County Championship matches have yielded just 43 rankings points, 11 of them in the defeat by Northamptonshire at Wantage Road.
Somerset pace bowler Craig Overton is third in the rankings on 455 points with Hampshire’s former South Africa fast bowler Kyle Abbott fourth on 453 points and Surrey’s former Sri Lanka batsman Kumar Sangakkara fifth on 451 points.
Sangakkara, who will retire at the end of the English season, said farewell to the Kia Oval in style by making his eighth County Championship century of the season – 157 in the first innings against Somerset – and a match haul of 39 rankings points.
The PCA MVP Rankings system identifies the match-winners and key influencers of matches throughout the domestic season.
The formula takes into account conditions, quality of opposition, captaincy and strike-rates as well as runs scored and wickets taken.
In the County Championship PCA MVP, Essex seamer Jamie Porter has gone three points clear at the top of the table after another productive week.
Porter took six wickets in the match to help the newly-crowned champions complete a remarkable victory over Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl after they had followed on.
A match haul of 25 PCA MVP points took Porter ahead of Abbott in the Championship rankings with Kent all-rounder Darren Stevens, the previous leader, frustrated by a complete washout against Derbyshire at Chesterfield.
