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Matador Cup Player of the Tournament

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

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.