Willey’s ton takes him top of PCA MVP

DAVID Willey’s explosive century for Yorkshire against Worcestershire has helped to take the England all-rounder to the top of the PCA’s MVP Rankings for the T20 Blast.

Willey’s 118 from just 55 balls was his second century in the competition and Yorkshire’s highest ever T20 score. The innings earned Willey 40 rankings points towards a match haul of 44 points and he followed up with 17 more points in the win over Durham to overtake Derbyshire’s Wayne Madsen and go top of the competition PCA MVP.

Willey now has 126 points in T20 cricket this season, two more than Madsen with Glamorgan all-rounder Colin Ingram the other man to have reached the 100 points milestone.

Willey’s points haul for his innings against Worcestershire also took him to 13th on the all-time list of best single innings performances in T20 cricket since the PCA MVP Rankings were introduced in 2007.

Ross Whiteley did his best to outgun Willey as he struck Yorkshire slow letarmer Karl Carver for six sixes in an over in Worcestershire’s reply.

Whiteley finished with 65 from 22 balls – a third of Worcestershire’s runs – and 18 batting points but his spectacular innings failed to save the Pears.

Kent all-rounder Matt Coles took a hat-trick but also finished on the losing side against Middlesex.

Coles dismissed James Franklin, John Simpson and Tim Southee in the final over of Middlesex’s innings to finish with four for 32 which gave him 16 PCA MVP bowling points.

Warwickshire’s New Zealand off-spinner Jeetan Patel, who was the overall PCA MVP winner last year, has moved into sixth place in this season’s T20 rankings after a week of miserly bowling. Patel took one for 29 in the defeat by Yorkshire at Headingley, one for 26 in the victory over Derbyshire and one for 17 in Tuesday’s win at Leicester and has now accumulated 74 points.

Surrey’s former Sri Lanka batsman Kumar Sangakkara still leads the overall PCAMVP, which covers all formats, on 382 points with Ingram second on 353.