Hardik Pandya, MVP, India-Australia ODI series

The all-rounder is at the top of the MVP table more because of his batting than his bowling, note Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji.

The Most Valuable Player Index (MVPI) always favours all-rounders -- as it indeed should because all-rounders have opportunities with both bat and ball.

However, Hardik Pandya reached the top of the table more because of his batting -- with over 200 runs at more than a run a ball -- than his bowling during the recent five match ODI series against Australia, which India won 4-1.

Indeed, Pandya looks poised to make the shift from a bowling all-rounder to a batting all-rounder especially if they keep asking him to bat at No 4.

Otherwise, the MVP table has the usual suspects in the top five: Four opening batsmen out of five.

The surprise is that the usual topper -- India Captain Virat Kohli, is down to 9th place -- mainly because he twice chopped the ball onto his stumps after two promising starts.

Recall that the MVPI formula picks out batsmen who score a lot of runs at a high strike rate, bowlers who take a lot of wickets at a low economy rate, and fielders who take the most catches or participate in run outs.

MVPI expresses a player's overall batting + bowling + fielding performance in terms of a 'run equivalent'.

Table 1: Most Valuable Players in India vs Australia ODI series:

MVPI: Most Valuable Player Index = Sum of batting, bowling and fielding points

Run outs are counted as 1 (wicket) for a direct hit, and 0.5 (wicket) if the fielder is an equal participant in a run out dismissal.

If we look at how Indian players have performed across the 2017-2018 season so far, we find that Kohli still reigns supreme.

But he faces a threat from Rohit Sharma (in spite of missing 5 ODI games) and Pandya (especially if he keeps taking good wickets).

Table 2: Most Valuable Indian ODI players in the 2017-2018 season (20 matches so far):