Australia's left-armer pacer Nathan Bracken [Images] proved to be the most valuable player (MVP) of the Commonwealth Bank tri-series. Not surprisingly, he was also named as the Man of the Series for the tournament.

Bracken topped the list because he took the largest number of wickets (21) at an economy rate of just 4.04.

Table 1: The most valuable players in the CB tri-series (14 matches)

Rank	Player	Country	Runs	Balls	batpts	Rc	Bb	W	bwlpts	Ct|St	Run Outs	fldpts	M	Total
1	Nathan Bracken	Aus	17	45	-2	347	515	21	569	1	0	5	10	572
2	James Hopes	Aus	193	242	192.4	218	371	8	270.8	3	1.5	51	9	514.2
3	Adam Gilchrist [Images]	Aus	322	328	381.6	0	0	0	0	16|2	0	100	10	481.6
4	Gautam Gambhir [Images]	Ind	440	532	454.4	0	0	0	0	1	0	5	10	459.4
5	Mahendra Singh Dhoni [Images]	Ind	347	469	318.8	0	0	0	0	19|2	1	139	10	457.8
6	Brett Lee [Images]	Aus	73	124	46.8	356	430	16	372	2	0.5	22	8	440.8
7	Sachin Tendulkar [Images]	Ind	399	468	423.6	21	24	0	-1.8	2	0	10	10	431.8
8	Harbhajan Singh [Images]	Ind	57	45	78	277	391	8	227.8	1	3	77	10	382.8
9	Mitchell Johnson	Aus	35	53	27.6	311	462	11	322.6	2	0.5	22	9	372.2
10	KC Sangakkara	SL	326	447	294.4	0	0	0	0	6|2	1	74	8	368.4
11	Michael Clarke [Images]	Aus	314	446	271.2	130	156	3	66.8	4	0	20	10	358
12	Ishant Sharma	Ind	5	17	-3.6	285	373	14	349.4	2	0	10	9	355.8
13	Mathew Hayden	Aus	298	388	285.6	0	0	0	0	3	1	39	8	324.6
14	Irfan Pathan [Images]	Ind	118	182	90.4	377	412	11	216.6	1	0.5	17	10	324
15	Praveen Kumar	Ind	13	15	14	175	240	10	257	2	1	34	4	305
16	Michael Hussey	Aus	278	392	242.4	0	0	0	0	6	0.5	42	10	284.4
17	Brad Hogg [Images]	Aus	85	132	64.4	236	327	8	217.6	0	0	0	7	282
18	Rohit Sharma	Ind	235	311	221.2	5	6	0	-0.2	5	1.5	61	10	282
19	SL Malinga	SL	19	65	-14	368	430	12	264	1	0.5	17	8	267
20	Yuvraj Singh [Images]	Ind	202	239	212.8	120	156	1	28.8	2	0.5	22	9	263.6
21	M Muralitharan	SL	25	43	15.6	353	440	9	215	3	0	15	8	245.6
22	MKDI Amerasinghe	SL	16	20	16	276	342	9	213.6	1	0	5	7	234.6
23	TM Dilshan	SL	159	169	182.8	19	12	0	-9.4	4	1.5	56	7	229.4
24	DPMD Jayawardene	SL	214	297	190.4	0	0	0	0	7	0	35	8	225.4
25	Andrew Symonds [Images]	Aus	174	226	167.2	59	53	1	7.4	5	1	49	10	223.6
26	Ricky Ponting [Images]	Aus	191	268	167.6	0	0	0	0	6	1	54	10	221.6
27	Stuart Clark	Aus	8	10	8	151	252	6	194.6	1	0	5	5	207.6
28	S Sreesanth [Images]	Ind	9	13	7.6	232	242	9	177.6	0	0	0	7	185.2
29	WPUJC Vaas	SL	19	39	6.8	270	372	5	147.6	0	0	0	7	154.4
30	ST Jayasuriya	SL	103	116	113.2	42	37	1	11.6	1	1	29	8	153.8
31	Robin Uthappa	Ind	142	214	112.8	0	0	0	0	4	0	20	10	132.8
32	KMDN Kulasekara	SL	14	29	4.8	129	156	5	115.8	1	0	5	3	125.6
33	Virender Sehwag [Images]	Ind	81	103	79.6	66	78	1	20.4	1	0.5	17	5	117
34	MF Maharoof	SL	10	20	4	152	187	4	93.6	1	0.5	17	4	114.6
35	CK Kapugedera	SL	86	176	31.2	101	132	2	52.6	2	0.5	22	7	105.8
36	Munaf Patel [Images]	Ind	0	9	-7.2	120	162	2	57.6	0	1	24	3	74.4
37	Piyush Chawla	Ind	6	2	10.4	78	114	0	13.2	3	0	15	2	38.6
38	LPC Silva	SL	79	171	21.2	0	0	0	0	3	0	15	8	36.2
39	Dilruwan Perera	SL	14	36	-0.8	28	42	1	29.6	0	0	0	3	28.8
40	Ashley Noffke	Aus	0	0	0	46	54	1	21.2	0	0	0	1	21.2
41	WU Tharanga	SL	10	18	5.6	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	5.6
42	Brad Haddin	Aus	12	44	-11.2	0	0	0	0	1	0	5	3	-6.2
43	Manoj Tiwari	Ind	2	16	-8.8	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	-8.8

Runs (scored) | Balls (taken) | Bat-pts: Batting points | | Rc: Runs conceded | Bb: Balls bowled | W: Wickets taken | Bowl-pts: Bowling points | Ct/St: Catches taken / Stumpings | Run outs (participated) | Field-pts: fielding points | M: Matches played | Total (points) = 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.

While their bowlers did well, Australia's defeat in the finals was largely due to the collapse of its batting machinery. While Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds are in the bottom half of the list; even Matthew Hayden [Images] and Michael Clarke aren't in the top 10.

After his two wonderful knocks in the finals, Sachin Tendulkar proved to be India's most valuable player by a long mile in the 2007-08 ODI season. Almost a decade after his heady heroics of 1998, Tendulkar showed that he could still be the best. Tendulkar's ODI records will be almost as hard to surpass as Sir Donald Bradman's Test records.

Table 2: India's most valuable players of the 2007-08 season (36 matches)

Rank	Player	Runs	Balls	batpts	Rc	Bb	W	bwlpts	Ct|St	Run Outs	fldpts	M	Total
1	Sachin Tendulkar	1514	1820	1572	268	258	5	58.4	7	0.5	47	33	1677.4
2	Yuvraj Singh	1133	1353	1184	585	627	12	204.6	9	3	117	35	1505.2
3	Mahendra Singh Dhoni	1024	1309	1001	0	0	0	0	38|13	5.5	452	34	1452.8
4	Gautam Gambhir	1003	1289	974.8	0	0	0	0	3	0	15	28	989.8
5	Harbhajan Singh	158	164	184.8	716	955	15	408	6	3	102	20	694.8
6	Irfan Pathan	249	358	211.6	929	1023	23	441.4	4	0.5	32	22	685
7	Sourav Ganguly [Images]	611	850	542	300	348	5	98.4	1	1	29	20	669.4
8	Zaheer Khan [Images]	148	208	129.6	1000	1160	22	456	2	2.5	70	22	655.6
9	Robin Uthappa	464	523	509.6	0	0	0	0	9	2	93	24	602.6
10	R P Singh	26	55	8	788	885	24	496	2	2	58	18	562
11	Rahul Dravid [Images]	462	554	480.8	0	0	0	0	10	0.5	62	20	542.8
12	Piyush Chawla	26	36	23.2	616	780	17	416	11	0.5	67	15	506.2
13	S Sreesanth	27	66	1.2	592	608	24	470.4	3	0	15	14	486.6
14	Rohit Sharma	296	385	284	8	12	0	1.6	8	1.5	76	14	361.6
15	Ishant Sharma	5	17	-3.6	323	415	14	345	2	0	10	10	351.4
16	Praveen Kumar	25	28	27.6	225	300	10	255	2	1	34	5	316.6
17	Ramesh Powar [Images]	46	78	29.6	528	668	10	246.4	2	0	10	13	286
18	Virender Sehwag	210	243	225.6	149	162	2	28.6	3	0.5	27	10	281.2
19	Murali Kartik [Images]	37	48	35.6	300	377	10	241.6	0	0	0	7	277.2
20	Dinesh Karthik [Images]	180	217	186.4	0	0	0	0	12|1	0.5	82	13	268.4
21	Ajit Agarkar [Images]	19	38	7.6	415	414	12	204.2	2	0.5	22	8	233.8
22	Munaf Patel	1	12	-7.6	328	378	8	166.4	1	1	29	8	187.8
23	Dinesh Mongia	34	41	35.2	106	108	3	52.4	0	0	0	2	87.6
24	Manoj Tiwari	2	16	-8.8	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	-8.8

Runs (scored) | Balls (taken) | Bat-pts: Batting points | | Rc: Runs conceded | Bb: Balls bowled | W: Wickets taken | Bowl-pts: Bowling points | Ct/St: Catches taken / Stumpings | Run outs (participated) | Field-pts: fielding points | M: Matches played | Total (points)  = 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.

Srinivas Bhogle and Debasish Ghosh work for Cranes Software International [Get Quote] [Get Quote] Limited, Bangalore.