Hardik Pandya, MVP, India-Australia ODI series

The all-rounder is at the top of the MVP table more because of his batting than his bowling, note Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji.

IMAGE: Hardik Pandya hits out. Photograph: BCCI

The Most Valuable Player Index (MVPI) always favours all-rounders -- as it indeed should because all-rounders have opportunities with both bat and ball.

However, Hardik Pandya reached the top of the table more because of his batting -- with over 200 runs at more than a run a ball -- than his bowling during the recent five match ODI series against Australia, which India won 4-1.

Indeed, Pandya looks poised to make the shift from a bowling all-rounder to a batting all-rounder especially if they keep asking him to bat at No 4.

Otherwise, the MVP table has the usual suspects in the top five: Four opening batsmen out of five.

The surprise is that the usual topper -- India Captain Virat Kohli, is down to 9th place -- mainly because he twice chopped the ball onto his stumps after two promising starts.

Recall that the MVPI formula picks out batsmen who score a lot of runs at a high strike rate, bowlers who take a lot of wickets at a low economy rate, and fielders who take the most catches or participate in run outs.

MVPI expresses a player's overall batting + bowling + fielding performance in terms of a 'run equivalent'.

Table 1: Most Valuable Players in India vs Australia ODI series:

Rank	Player	Runs	Top Score	4s	6s	Strike Rate	Wickets	Economy	Matches	MVPI
1	Hardik Pandya	222	83	13	12	108.8	6	6.1	5	419
2	Rohit Sharma	296	125	22	14	104.2	0	-	5	355
3	Aaron Finch	250	124	28	8	97.3	0	5.7	3	299
4	David Warner	245	124	23	5	93.5	0	-	5	287
5	Ajinkya Rahane	244	70	29	1	82.7	0	-	5	257
6	Nathan Coulter-Nile	10	8	0	0	38.5	10	5.1	5	257
7	Kedar Jadhav	138	67	15	2	86.8	2	5.1	5	203
8	Bhuvneshwar Kumar	52	32	6	0	82.5	5	4.5	4	191
9	Virat Kohli	180	92	15	0	81.1	0	-	5	180
10	Marcus Stoinis	153	62	12	6	87.4	2	6	5	179
11	Kane Richardson	0	0	0	0	0	7	5.5	3	170
12	Jasprit Bumrah	10	10	2	0	166.7	5	5.2	4	153
13	M S Dhoni	100	79	6	3	87.7	0	-	5	148
14	Steven Smith	142	63	14	0	78	0	-	5	145
15	Yuzvendra Chahal	1	1	0	0	50	6	5.2	4	143
16	Kuldeep Yadav	0	0	0	0	0	7	6.2	4	133
17	Pat Cummins	11	9	1	0	110	4	4.7	5	129
18	Manish Pandey	83	36	11	1	100	0	-	5	117
19	Travis Head	119	42	10	1	80.4	0	6.2	5	98
20	Glenn Maxwell	58	39	3	6	118.4	0	2	3	98
21	Peter Handscomb	59	43	3	1	109.3	0	-	3	86
22	Umesh Yadav	2	2	0	0	100	4	7.1	1	81
23	Axar Patel	5	5	0	0	83.3	3	5.2	2	81
24	Mathew Wade	34	20	1	1	87.2	0	-	4	63
25	James Faulkner	44	32	1	1	104.8	1	6.6	2	58
26	Adam Zampa	5	5	0	0	125	4	7	3	54
27	Ashton Agar	9	9	1	0	128.6	2	6.6	2	32
28	Hilton Cartwright	2	1	0	0	8.7	0	-	2	7
29	Mohammed Shami	6	6	1	0	100	0	6.2	1	-5

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.

If we look at how Indian players have performed across the 2017-2018 season so far, we find that Kohli still reigns supreme.

But he faces a threat from Rohit Sharma (in spite of missing 5 ODI games) and Pandya (especially if he keeps taking good wickets).

Table 2: Most Valuable Indian ODI players in the 2017-2018 season (20 matches so far):

Rank	Player name	Runs	4s	6s	Strike Rate	Wickets	Economy	Matches	MVPI
1	Virat Kohli	1,012	97	13	97.3	0	5.8	20	1238
2	Rohit Sharma	902	84	29	95.4	0	-	15	1027
3	Hardik Pandya	370	19	24	121.3	20	5.5	19	990
4	Shikhar Dhawan	689	91	10	106.3	0	-	14	863
5	Jasprit Bumrah	11	2	0	73.3	24	4.7	14	718
6	M S Dhoni	483	30	9	81.3	0	-	20	689
7	Bhuvneshwar Kumar	106	10	1	70.2	19	4.5	16	670
8	Kedar Jadhav	299	33	4	96.8	10	5.1	19	646
9	Ajinkya Rahane	585	63	4	78.2	0	-	11	567
10	Kuldeep Yadav	2	0	0	25	18	4.8	11	482
11	Umesh Yadav	2	0	0	66.7	14	5.4	8	333
12	Axar Patel	11	0	0	73.3	9	4.3	6	299
13	Yuzvendra Chahal	1	0	0	50	11	4.9	8	293
14	Manish Pandey	169	17	1	94.9	0	-	7	210
15	Ravindra Jadeja	26	1	0	70.3	4	5.2	7	187
16	Yuvraj Singh	162	18	2	89.5	0	5	8	178
17	Ravichandran Ashwin	1	0	0	33.3	5	5	6	123
18	Mohammed Shami	7	1	0	87.5	4	4.8	3	114
19	Lokesh Rahul	28	2	0	73.7	0	-	4	54
20	Dinesh Karthik	52	5	0	73.2	0	-	2	45
21	Shardul Thakur	0	0	0	-	1	5.7	2	26

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