Denly and Kuhn in PCA MVP top 3
Kent Spitfires batsman and legspinner Joe Denly increased his lead in the Royal London One-Day Cup Most Valuable Player Rankings after his eighth one-day hundred for the county.
The batsman has been in sparkling form this season, scoring 406 runs to help the Spitfires to win five-in-a-row as they go through to the quarter-finals with momentum.
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Denly has hit two tons and taken nine wickets in the One-Day Cup, including an unbeaten 150 with the bat and four wickets with the ball against Glamorgan. The Kent star has pulled in a whopping 144.16 points, as he canters away from the rest of the pack.
The MVP formula was designed by the players to identify the match-winners and key influencers of matches throughout the domestic and international season, something Denly has excelled at so far in white-ball cricket.
Billy Godleman trails in second place despite sitting at the top of the pile for batting MVP points and the lead run scorer in the competition. With over 500 runs and 105 points to his name his Derbyshire side are still in danger of going out of the competition.
They need to beat Nottinghamshire to confirm their place in the next round of the One-Day Cup.
Another Kent player rounds off the top three, Heino Kuhn who has scored 409 runs with hit back-to-back hundreds at Beckenham as Kent towards the knockout stages, and is closing down Godleman who is ten MVP points ahead of him.
The in-form player in the country, Callum Ferguson, has played just three games and already has 81 MVP points.
Since his arrival at Worcestershire he has smashed 192, six and 159 not out. It has been a remarkable display of hitting which prompted Durham’s Chris Rushworth to ask if they are playing on under-13 pitches.
Worcestershire top the North group giving Ferguson more opportunity to catapult up the rankings. On current form, he is a serious contender for the MVP crown.
Warwickshire are level on points with the Pears with plenty of permutations when it comes to team’s chances of qualifying in both groups. The Bears are flying after back-to-back victories which have been led by veteran Jonathan Trott who has hit hundreds in both wins to take him to 16th in the MVP One-Day Cup Rankings.
Joining Denly, Godleman and Kuhn in the top five in the One-Day Cup MVP Rrankings is Essex’s Varun Chopra and Tom Kohler-Cadmore of Yorkshire.
Essex need to defeat Kent to confirm their place in the knock-out stages, but failing to do so would leave them sweating on other results.
The final One-Day Cup fixtures are on Thursday with the quarter-finals scheduled seven days later before the semi-finals on Sunday 17 and Monday 18 June. The Lord’s final will take place on Saturday 30 June with Nottinghamshire still in with a chance to defend their trophy.