Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji reveal the Most Valuable Players of the Inda-Australia ODI series.
Five of the seven most valuable players in the India-Australia ODI series that ended recently were bowlers.
Also, five of the seven most valuable players were Australians in a series that Australia won.
It was a funny kind of series: India lost although they looked significantly superior, because they under-performed.
There was so much focus on getting the World Cup combination right that we decided it wasn't so important to defeat Australia.
Usman Khawaja scored more runs (383) than even Virat Kohli (310) to become the Most Valuable Player of the series with a MVPI of 422.
Recall that the Most Valuable Player Index (MVPI) 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'.
Most Valuable Players in the India-Australia series (March 2 to 13, 2019)
| Rank | Player | Runs | Top Score | 4s | 6s | Strike Rate | Wickets | Economy Rate | Matches | MVPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Usman Khawaja | 383 | 104 | 39 | 4 | 88.9 | 0 | - | 5 | 422 |
| 2 | Virat Kohli | 310 | 123 | 35 | 2 | 107.6 | 0 | - | 5 | 418 |
| 3 | Pat Cummins | 15 | 15 | 2 | 0 | 150 | 14 | 4.6 | 5 | 398 |
| 4 | Adam Zampa | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 11 | 5.7 | 5 | 273 |
| 5 | Peter Handscomb | 236 | 117 | 17 | 3 | 92.2 | 0 | - | 5 | 264 |
| 6 | Jhye Richardson | 29 | 29 | 3 | 0 | 138.1 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 227 |
| 7 | Kuldeep Yadav | 22 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 68.8 | 10 | 6 | 5 | 220 |
| 8 | Shikhar Dhawan | 177 | 143 | 24 | 3 | 104.1 | 0 | - | 5 | 217 |
| 9 | Kedar Jadhav | 172 | 81 | 17 | 2 | 83.1 | 2 | 6.4 | 5 | 189 |
| 10 | Vijay Shankar | 120 | 46 | 10 | 5 | 112.1 | 2 | 6.3 | 5 | 188 |
| 11 | Jasprit Bumrah | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 87.5 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 188 |
| 12 | Rohit Sharma | 202 | 95 | 18 | 3 | 75.7 | 0 | - | 5 | 182 |
| 13 | Ashton Turner | 125 | 84 | 8 | 8 | 145.3 | 0 | - | 3 | 178 |
| 14 | Aaron Finch | 157 | 93 | 19 | 4 | 78.5 | 0 | 7.3 | 5 | 165 |
| 15 | Alex Carey | 103 | 36 | 12 | 0 | 101 | 0 | - | 5 | 161 |
| 16 | Marcus Stoinis | 140 | 52 | 15 | 2 | 81.9 | 2 | 6.6 | 4 | 160 |
| 17 | Glenn Maxwell | 115 | 47 | 10 | 4 | 99.1 | 1 | 5.9 | 5 | 158 |
| 18 | Ravindra Jadeja | 45 | 24 | 0 | 1 | 60.8 | 3 | 4.8 | 4 | 156 |
| 19 | Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 47 | 46 | 3 | 2 | 83.9 | 4 | 6.1 | 2 | 132 |
| 20 | Mohammed Shami | 13 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 86.7 | 5 | 5.5 | 4 | 121 |
| 21 | M S Dhoni | 85 | 59 | 8 | 2 | 73.9 | 0 | - | 3 | 107 |
| 22 | Nathan Coulter-Nile | 32 | 28 | 3 | 0 | 103.2 | 3 | 5.7 | 2 | 102 |
| 23 | Nathan Lyon | 7 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 77.8 | 3 | 4.4 | 3 | 99 |
| 24 | Rishabh Pant | 52 | 36 | 5 | 2 | 130 | 0 | - | 2 | 93 |
| 25 | K L Rahul | 26 | 26 | 1 | 0 | 83.9 | 0 | - | 1 | 31 |
| 26 | Ambati Rayudu | 33 | 18 | 4 | 0 | 55.9 | 0 | - | 3 | 17 |
| 27 | Shaun Marsh | 29 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 59.2 | 0 | - | 3 | 17 |
| 28 | Yuzvendra Chahal | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 1 | -6 |
| 29 | Jason Behrendorff | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 0 | 5.4 | 2 | -7 |
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.
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