Sangakkara scoops pca player of the month award Surrey’s former Sri Lanka batsman Kumar Sangakkara is the runaway winner of the Professional Cricketers’ Association Player of the Month Award for May. Sangakkara earned the most points – 167 – in the PCA Most Valuable Player Rankings in all county cricket during May and was shortlisted for the Player of the Month Award along with Essex’s England batsman Alastair Cook, Worcestershire opener Daryl Mitchell and Glamorgan’s South Africa all-rounder Colin Ingram. The four went into an online poll on the PCA and Sky Sports websites, giving fans the chance to decide the winner. Sangakkara polled almost twice as many votes as the other three shortlisted players combined and follows Gloucestershire seamer Liam Norwell as the second winner of the new PCA monthly awards. He received his award at the Oval on Saturday, in between commentary stints during the ICC Champions Trophy game between South Africa and Sri Lanka. Speaking afterwards, Sangakkara said: ” It’s a lovely award to get. Thank you to the PCA and all the people who voted. This has come at the back end of a good run for me with the bat.” The man known universally as ‘King’ to Surrey fans and players is keen to extend his run of form and help Surrey maintain their strong position in the Specsavers County Championship as the team prepare to take on Essex at Guildford on Friday (June 9th), adding: ” Yeah, hopefully [we can win at Guildford]. That is the plan. We’ve played some good cricket but we know we need to play some better cricket to win another game and more games from there. ” We want to fight for that title at the end of the season so there’s a lot of hard work to be done between now and then. It’s very wide open. A lot of teams have the chance [to win the title] and hopefully Surrey will be one of the contenders.” {{KUMAR SAN POTM MAY}} The shortlist was produced via the MVP Rankings system, an innovation which provides a more rigorous analysis of player performances than traditional batting and bowling averages. The rankings were designed by the players to identify the match-winners and key influencers of matches throughout the domestic season. The formula gives full credit to those players whose performances improve their team’s chances of winning. Points are accrued for all runs scored and wickets taken, these are then adjusted within the context of the match to take into account strike rates and economy rates. The formula also takes into account conditions, quality of opposition, captaincy and strike-rates as well as runs scored and wickets taken with the player who tops the overall PCA MVP Rankings at the end of the season, receiving a £ 10,000 prize and a trophy. Sangakkara has announced that he will retire from first-class cricket at the end of the season ending an illustrious career that included 134 Tests, 404 One Day Internationals and 56 T20 Internationals. But the 39-year-old shows no sign of winding down as he made four centuries in all cricket during May including two in the match in the drawn Specsavers County Championship match against Middlesex at Lord’s. The Sri Lankan followed up with a double century in the first innings of last weekend’s draw with Essex at Chelmsford which was his fifth in a row in first-class cricket. But he fell just short of his attempt to equal the world record of six in a row shared by CB Fry, Don Bradman and Mike Procter when he was caught and bowled for 84 in the second innings. Sangakkara topped the overall County Championship MVP at the end of May and remains in second place behind Kent all-rounder Darren Stevens in the overall PCA MVP. To see the full MVP table click here.
