When Cameron White was announced as “Player of the Tournament” for the recently completed Matador Cup a puzzled look appeared on many faces. No doubt that White is in brilliant form, and deserves a spot in the World Cup squad, but was he really the best player in this year’s tournament?

Usman Khawaja piled on 169 more runs, was much more consistent, and put together a highest score of 166 off just 110 balls as Queensland successfully chased the mammoth 398 target that Tasmania had set them. Many – myself included – though he was a certainty to take out the prize.

So I started going back through all the matches to see how many votes White and Khawaja might have picked up in each of their matches. Then I got carried away and went through and applied the 3-2-1 vote (which is how I believe the umpires cast the official votes) to every match (except the finals).

I gave the official man of the match the 3 votes, and then handed out the remaining votes as I saw fit. I suspect the actual voting varied a little from what I’ve come up with, but it was an interesting exercise…

Match		White	Khawaja	3	2	1
1	QLD v VIC QLD won by 9 wickets	6 (10)	38 (47)	Stekete 4/29	Cutting 3/13	Hartley 46*
2	NSW v SA NSW won by 4 wickets			Hazlewood 7/36	Maddinson 84	Ferguson 82
3	QLD v NSW NSW won by 4 wickets		43 (45)	Nevill 43 + 4 catches	Henriques 3/28	Rohrer 52
4	VIC v SA VIC won by 4 wickets	102 (101)		White 102	Hussey 65	Hastings 23* + 3/37
5	SA v WA WA won by 3 wickets			Zampa 4/18	Paris 3/34	Behrendorff 3/38
6	TAS v VIC TAS won by 132 runs	0 (1)		Wells 110*	Rainbird 5/29	Gulbis 63 + 1/11
7	QLD v NSW NSW won by 5 wickets		37 (53)	Bollinger 3/30	Nevill 74 + 4 catches	Patterson 50*
8	TAS v WA WA won by 7 wickets			Paris 4/13	Behrendorff 2/3	Coulter-Nile 3/19
9	SA v QLD QLD won by 94 runs		34 (49)	Burns 115	Reardon 75*	Forrest 98
10	NSW v VIC NSW won by 5 wickets	107 (84)		Henriques 131	White 107	Rohrer 42*
11	TAS v WA WA won by 28 runs			Agar 64 + 1/40	Rimmington 55 + 2/34	Tye 23* + 3/55
12	QLD v VIC QLD won by 116 runs	50 (46)	85 (95)	Hartley 90	Khawaja 85	Milenko 3/10
13	SA v TAS No result
14	NSW v WA Abandoned
15	WA v SA WA won by 4 wickets			Coulter-Nile 4/32	Ferguson 82	Voges 55
16	NSW v VIC VIC won by 2 runs	53 (67)		Hussey 58	Holland 2/34	White 53
17	QLD v TAS QLD won by 7 wickets		166 (110)	Dunk 229*	Khawaja 166	Hartley 142
18	VIC v WA WA won by 6 wickets	36 (53)		Coulter-Nile 5/26	Voges 83*	Harris 69
19	NSW v TAS TAS won by 5 wickets			Fekete 3/36	Paine 69	Dunk 42
20	TAS v SA SA won by 37 runs			Cooper 72	Richardson 4/48	Dunk 92
21	QLD v WA QLD won by 1 run		120 (129)	Khawaja 120	Simmons 98	Rimmington 4/43

After all that, it appears that Khawaja was definitely unlucky, but – to my surprise – so was Nathan Coulter-Nile. He only played 5 matches (compared to 7 for White and Khawaja) but picked up two “man of the match” awards in the process. In my tally – which has obviously turned out quite differently to the real thing – Khawaja and Coulter-Nile tied on 7 votes, with White coming in third with 6.

I suspect the official tally was similarly close. Unfortunately, there is no prize for 2nd.

Player	3 votes	2 votes	1 vote	Total
Coulter-Nile	2		1	7
Khawaja	1	2		7
White	1	1	1	6
Dunk	1		2	5
Hartley	1		2	5
Henriques	1	1		5
Hussey	1	1		5
Nevill	1	1		5
Paris	1	1		5
Agar	1			3
Behrendorff		1	1	3
Bollinger	1			3
Burns	1			3
Cooper	1			3
Fekete	1			3
Ferguson		1	1	3
Hazlewood	1			3
Rimmington		1	1	3
Stekete	1			3
Voges		1	1	3
Wells	1			3
Zampa	1			3
Cutting		1		2
Holland		1		2
Maddinson		1		2
Paine		1		2
Rainbird		1		2
Reardon		1		2
Richardson		1		2
Rohrer			2	2
Simmons		1		2
Forrest			1	1
Gulbis			1	1
Harris			1	1
Hastings			1	1
Milenko			1	1
Patterson			1	1
Tye			1	1

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What is “Cricket by Numbers”?

I’m trialling it as a new ‘section’ on the blog, something for content that is a little less wordy, and more focused on the numbers. Because in cricket there is a statistic, or record, for almost everything.