Gambhir tops the MVP list

Gautam Gambhir was the most valuable player (MVP) of the recently-concluded India-New Zealand One-Day International series, but Yusuf Pathan, with that explosive century and eight wickets, wasn't too far behind.

The five most valuable players of the series were all Indians, which isn't such a surprise, because it was such a one-sided series, the hosts blanking New Zealand 5-0.

It is a pleasure to see off-spinner R Ashwin high on the list; he bagged a lot of wickets at a very decent economy rate and seems a great prospect.

Our formula to compute MVP picks out batsmen who score a lot of runs at a high strike rate, and bowlers who take a lot of wickets at a low economy rate.

See Table 1, below, for the full MVP list.

Table 1: Most valuable players in the India-New Zealand series:

Runs (scored) | Sixes | Fours | Top score | Strike rate | W: Wickets taken | Eco: Economy rate | | M: Matches played | MVPI: Most valuable player index = 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.

It has been a funny sort of ODI season for India. India have played most of their matches with Sri Lanka (7) and New Zealand (7). The other opponents include Zimbabwe (2), Bangladesh (1), Pakistan (1) and Australia (1).

The most prolific ODI scorer in the world --  Sachin Tendulkar -- doesn't even figure on the scorecard!

Established winners like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and even Mahendra Singh Dhoni figure lower down the list; Dhoni hasn't even captained many ODI matches this season.

Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma have scored the most runs, while Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar and R Ashwin have taken the most wickets. Ravindra Jadeja has scored runs and taken wickets without ever being convincing or captivating. One could say the same about India's lacklustre ODI season so far too.

Table 2: India's most valuable players in the 2010-11 ODI season (19 matches so far)

Runs (scored) | Sixes | Fours | Strike rate | Bat-pts: Batting points | W: Wickets taken | Eco: Economy rate | Bowl-pts: Bowling points | Field-pts: fielding points | M: Matches played | MVPI: Most valuable player index = sum of batting, bowling and fielding points | AvMVPI = MVPI/M | *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.