Stevens holds off Roy in T20 MVP thriller

Jason Roy’s pyrotechnics in Surrey’s semi-final of the NatWest T20 Blast were not enough to see his side through to the final, nor could they quite propel him to victory in the T20 FTI MVP.

Roy made 58 off 25 balls against the Birmingham Bears, his ninth fifty of a brilliant campaign, but he fell agonizingly 1.5 points short of Kent-veteran Stevens.

Stevens repeated his 2009 victory by scoring 351 runs and taking 18 wickets but in a victory of such small margins it was also the little things - like the two run-outs he effected - that got him over the line.

Stevens’ consistency in t20 has been quite remarkable. Since his 2009 victory he has finished in the top ten of the T20 FTI MVP in five out of six campaigns and is the leading points-scorer in the history of the T20 MVP.

Roy’s 677 runs were by some distance the most in the competition and he scored them at the impressive rate of 157 runs per 100 balls, too. He contributed a whopping 29% of Surrey’s runs and he lit up the Kia Oval throughout the competition. He hit 77 fours  – the most in competition and 27 sixes.

Glamorgan’s Jim Allenby came third with 548 runs and seven wickets. He scored his runs at 138 runs per 100 balls and he contributed over a quarter of his team’s runs.

Luke Wright, who won the inaugural T20 MVP back in 2007 when the Rankings began, clubbed 56 fours and 28 sixes in making 601 runs at the rate of 162 runs per 100 balls in this year’s campaign.

Wright was the second leading run-scorer in the competition behind Roy and finished fourth in the t20 FTI MVP.

Winning Birmingham Bears’ skipper Varun Chopra finished fifth after scoring 525 runs at the rate of 122 runs per 100 balls.

He made five fifties hitting 46 fours and 13 sixes in contributing 22.07%  of the Bears’ runs. He played a vital part in the field with his tactics and game-awareness and earned ten points for winning ten games as captain.

NATWEST T20 BLAST FTI MVP

Previous t20 winners                               Points

2013       David Willey                                       160                                        

2012       Dimitri Mascarenhas                       112

2011       Andrew McDonald                          222

2010       Chaminda Vaas                                 226

2009       Darren Stevens                                 143

2008       Graham Napier                                 173

2007       Luke Wright                                        111