Patel Pushing van Jaarsveld For MVP Title - 22/09/2008
Samit Patel is refusing to accept that Martin van Jaarsveld has already won the coveted title of PCA MVP. Two weeks ago the all-rounder was 93 points behind the South African but after a brilliant hundred against Surrey at the Oval he has not only kept Nottinghamshire on course for their second Championship (LVCC) Pennant in four years, but has closed the gap on van Jaarsveld to 47 points. Patel's first innings score of 135 was his second hundred in the LVCC, in addition to five fifties, but it is in the one-day game where he's been strongest. He finished fifth in the Pro40 MVP and fourth in the Friends Provident MVP scoring 1421 runs and taking 47 wickets across all competitions.
Van Jaarsveld had a difficult week as Kent were bowled out for just 92 by Lancashire marksman Glenn Chapple, which sucks them into a relegation battle. He did manage 23, a quarter of Kent's total, which stretched his lead in the LVCC MVP to 15 points over Hampshire duo Dimi Mascarenhas and James Tomlinson, his two nearest rivals, who had no match. But it was a good week for Yorkshire leg-spinner Adil Rashid, who leapt to fourth in the LVCC MVP after taking six wickets in the match at Scarborough against Somerset. He has 516 runs and 71 wickets across all cricket and 405 runs and 53 wickets in the Championship.
Another big mover in the LVCC was Somerset's Ian Blackwell who bashed 127 and 55 in the Scarborough match. He lies seventh having scored 935 championship runs and taken 20 wickets.
Blackwell's performance was in stark contrast to Marcus Trescothick, who had one of his worst weeks of the season with scores of 0 and 1. The former England opener was widely fancied a few short weeks ago to be the man to catch van Jaarsveld but he is now down to ninth overall. He is the country's second highest run-scorer, however with 2148 runs.
Ravi Bopara has featured in the top ten all season and it is fitting that he should be in the overall medal positions. He scored a second innings 133 against Warwickshire at Chelmsford taking his tally across all domestic cricket to 1954 runs in addition to 46 wickets. Bopara lies third in the overall MVP but has the highest average points-per-game of all the top-ranked players (17 pts) and might have run away with the title if he hadn't been out of county action playing for England.
The other performance of note came from Middlesex's Tim Murtagh who became the first bowler to take 100 wickets across all forms of domestic cricket this season. The away-swing bowler recorded first innings figures of 6-52 in the win over Worcestershire taking his tally in the LVCC to 61 and his overall wicket total to 101.
Leading Run-Scorers
1 Martin van Jaarsveld 2184 runs
2 Marcus Trescothick 2148 runs
3 Jacques Rudolph 2127 runs
4 Ravi Bopara 2083 (129 for England)
5 Jonathan Trott 2008 runs
6 HD Ackerman 1944 runs
7 Joe Denly 1914 runs
8 Murray Goodwin 1902 runs
9 Vikram Solanki1815
10 Mark Ramprakash 1776 runs
Leading Wicket-Takers
1 Steve Harmison 102 wickets (nine for England)
2 Tim Murtagh 101 wickets
3 Yasir Arafat 88 wickets
4 Kabir Ali 82 wickets
5 Ryan McLaren 81 wickets
6 Charl Langeveldt 79 wickets
7 Tim Bresnan 76 wickets
8 Charlie Shreck 72 wickets
9 =Danish Kaneria 71 wickets
9 =David Masters 71 wickets
Leading Keepers
1 Geraint Jones 103 dismissals (91 catches, 12 stumpings)
2 Steven Davies 88 dismissals (85, 3)
3 =James Foster 85 dismissals (75, 10)
3 = Phil Mustard 85 dismissals (76, 9)
5 Paul Nixon 83 dismissals (74, 9)
6 Gerard Brophy 80 dismissals (71, 9)
7 Chris Read 79 dismissals (68, 11)
8 Ben Scott 70 dismissals (56, 14)
9 Jon Batty 66 dismissals (54, 12)
10 Niall O'Brien 61 dismissals (53, 8)
Rankings Bulletins
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