Swann Cuts Broads MVP Lead to Eight Points After Disappointing End To SA Series – 20/01/10

Swann Cuts Broads MVP Lead to Eight Points After Disappointing End To SA Series - 20/01/10

England's tour of South Africa ended on a disappointing note with defeat in the final Test at the Wanderers but many of the team return with their reputations enhanced. Graeme Swann was joint man of the series with South Africa's Mark Boucher and he will head to Bangladesh next month hoping to reel in Stuart Broad at the top of the MVP rankings.

Swann, who is ranked first in the Test MVP and is leading the way in Tests with 42 wickets, snared 21 victims in the series including two ‘five-fors', while he also compiled a career best 85 in the first Test at Centurion. Across all forms of the game he has scored 579 runs and taken 61 wickets since the MVP campaign began back in May, a campaign which has seen England enjoy series against West Indies, Australia and South Africa and host the World Twenty20.

Swann has cut Broad's lead to just eight points but the latter's 3-83 at the Wanderers has seen him overtake Jimmy Anderson as England's leading wicket-taker across all forms with 71 scalps. Broad can boast 441 runs, a large proportion (376) of them coming in Tests, while his wickets have been more evenly shared amongst the formats: 39 in Tests, 24 in ODIs and 8 in T20. If he can hang on at the top, Broad will be the first England player to win back-to-back MVP titles having narrowly pipped Kevin Pietersen in 2008-09.

Anderson, 32 points adrift of Broad in third, is being rested for the tour of Bangladesh in order to rehabilitate his troublesome knee. The Lancashire and England spearhead has started series well but failed to take wickets in the last two Ashes Tests and the last Test in Johannesburg. He has 183 runs and 70 wickets across all forms, 170 and 39 of which have come in the Test arena. He is ranked third in the Test MVP behind Swann and Broad and second in the ODI MVP behind Paul Collingwood. Anderson has played more games than any other player (33) in the MVP campaign and deserves a well-earned break.

Collingwood, fourth in the overall MVP, has had a terrific three months racking up 395 runs from his last seven innings in the ODIs before making the most of his good form to notch 344 runs from seven Test knocks. His 91 to set up victory in the second Test in Durban was the highest of his seven Test fifties, the last of which came in a typically defiant innings of 71 at the Wanderers, which represented 42% of England's second innings total. Collingwood has not scored a hundred in Test cricket but he is comfortably England's most consistent batsman across all forms leading the run-scoring charts with 1376 in addition to taking 16 wickets.

Andrew Strauss lies fifth but will climb no higher having opted out of the Bangladesh tour to mentally freshen up ahead of an important and hectic 18 months of cricket. England's captain has been fantastic since assuming full-time leadership of the side back in February against the West Indies but has been showing signs of fatigue compiling just 170 in the South African series at an average of just 24. Strauss has scored 1143 runs across all forms, 700 coming in Tests.

Matt Prior comes in at sixth with 817 runs, 40 catches and three stumpings. The bulk of his runs (524) have come in the Test arena where he has scored five fifties, the highest of which came in the first innings at Newlands, Cape Town.

Alastair Cook, who will lead England in Bangladesh in Strauss' absence, is eleventh overall but is ranked fourth in the Test MVP with 718 runs which makes him England's highest run-getter in the campaign. Cook has notched two hundreds and a crucial 95 in the second Ashes Test at Lord's and as these knocks prove when Cook churns out big runs England generally win. Let's hope Captain Cook can plant an English flag on foreign soil next month as the 2009-2010 comes to a close.

For more information and to see the full tables and leaders in individual competitions click on the links below.

Overall MVP
Test Match MVP
ODI MVP
Twenty20 MVP