Club management · Play-Cricket syncGuide · MVP points
Cricket MVP points system: how to set one up for your club.
A cricket MVP points system awards points for runs, wickets and fielding from every scorecard, adds them up over the season, and ranks your club’s most valuable player. Here’s a formula you can copy, how to weight it, and what the points looked like after two real seasons.
How a cricket MVP points system works
Every MVP system does the same four things, whatever the numbers. It turns each performance on the scorecard into points, adds bonuses for the big moments, takes points off for mistakes, and totals it all up across the season:
- Batting points for runs, with extras for boundaries and milestones.
- Bowling points for wickets and maidens, with bonuses for hauls and tight spells.
- Fielding points for catches, stumpings and run-outs.
- Penalties, if you want them, for ducks, dropped catches and misfields.
Points are worked out per match, so every result has a Player of the Match, and they add up into a season table. The hard part isn’t the arithmetic. It’s deciding what each thing is worth.
A formula you can copy
This is the standard formula Brookweald Cricket Club plays to. It only needs what’s on an ordinary Play-Cricket scorecard, plus drops and misfields if you choose to record them.
| Performance | Points |
|---|---|
| Each run | +1 |
| Each four / each six (on top of the runs) | +1 / +2 |
| Fifty / hundred | +10 / +25 more |
| Duck | −10 |
| Each wicket | +15 |
| Each maiden | +5 |
| Three wickets / five wickets | +10 / +25 |
| Economy rate | +10 for an economy of 3.0 or under; −10 for 8.0 or over |
| Catch / stumping / run-out | +5 / +8 / +6 |
| Dropped catch / misfield | −5 / −2 |
A worked example
A batter makes 52 with 6 fours and a six, then takes a catch:
| 52 runs | 52 |
| 6 fours and 1 six | 8 |
| Fifty bonus | 10 |
| One catch | 5 |
| Match total | 75 |
|---|---|
| …if they also put one down at slip | 70 |
How many runs is a wicket worth?
This is the decision that shapes the whole leaderboard. Every published system can be boiled down to one ratio: how many runs a batter needs to score to earn the same as a bowler taking one wicket. Set it low and batters dominate; set it high and bowlers do.
| System | Per run | Per wicket | A wicket equals | Notable rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MVP Cricket standard (Brookweald) | 1 point | 15 points | 15 runs | Catch 5, stumping 8, run-out 6; drops −5 |
| Cricket Leinster MVP table (2012) | 1 point | 20 points | 20 runs | 10 points per game played; catch 10, stumping 15; run-outs not counted |
| Cricket Board of Maldives / CricHQ | 0.1 point | 2.5 points | 25 runs | Caught and stumped wickets split 50/50 with the fielder; +10% per extra wicket |
| CricHeroes | 0.1 point | 1.2 to 2.7 points | 12 to 27 runs | Wicket value rises with the length of the match and the batter’s position |
Most amateur systems land between 15 and 25 runs a wicket. A lower ratio suits clubs whose leaderboard is mostly about batting; if your best bowlers never get near the top, move it up. The professional systems also adjust for strike rate, economy and which batter was dismissed, but that needs ball-by-ball data most clubs don’t record.
What the points look like after a real season
Theory only gets you so far. Here is how every MVP point at Brookweald split between batting, bowling and fielding across two full seasons on the formula above (15 runs to a wicket):
Even at 15 runs a wicket, batting earned well over half of all the points in both seasons: 55.5% in 2025 and 58.7% in 2026. Fielding was only around 5%. That’s because every batter scores runs in almost every innings, while wickets are shared among fewer players. If you want bowlers level with batters at the top of the table, a ratio nearer 20 is a better starting point than 15.
The other number worth knowing: Brookweald recorded 50 drops in 50 matches in 2026, about one a game, costing 250 points between them. Small enough not to wreck anyone’s season, big enough to be talked about.
Should drops and ducks cost points?
Penalties are the most argued-about part of any MVP table, which is half the point of having them. Two things to settle first:
- Drops aren’t on the scorecard. Play-Cricket records catches, not chances, so somebody has to note drops and misfields on match day. If nobody will do it reliably, leave them out rather than count them for some games and not others.
- Keep penalties smaller than rewards. The standard formula takes 5 off for a drop, against 5 for a catch, and 10 for a duck. That’s enough to sting without one bad afternoon ruling a player out of the race.
Scoring T20s differently
In a 20-over game a six or a wicket is worth more than in a 45-over league match, so most clubs score short formats on their own values. The standard formula’s T20 version changes these and keeps everything else:
- Boundaries: fours +2, sixes +3.
- Milestones at 30 (+5), 50 (+15), 75 (+25), with +10 for a strike rate of 130 or more.
- Bowling: wickets +20, maidens +10, three wickets +15, and +10 for an economy of 5.0 or under; −10 for 9.5 or over.
Decide what counts as a T20 by the scheduled overs (20 or fewer) rather than the competition name: Play-Cricket labels most short games “Limited Overs”.
Player of the Match from the points
Once every match has points, Player of the Match picks itself: the top scorer on the day, with a joint award on a tie. Some systems prefer a player from the winning side whenever one finishes near the top. It’s a fair rule; just decide it in advance so nobody argues about it on Saturday night.
Running it without a spreadsheet
The formula is simple. Keeping it up to date every week isn’t: typing in scorecards, fixing corrections, rescoring the season when the committee changes a weighting. MVP Cricket syncs every scorecard from Play-Cricket each morning, scores it on your club’s own formula, recomputes the whole season in one press when you change it, and publishes a public MVP leaderboard players can check after every game. See a real club’s board, or read how Brookweald’s season went.
Questions clubs ask
Should a quick 50 count for more than a slow one?
It can, but only if you have balls faced for every innings. The standard formula rewards scoring rate through boundary bonuses instead, which every scorecard records: a 50 with eight fours earns 8 more points than one made in singles. T20s add a strike-rate bonus on top.
How do you score wicketkeepers fairly?
Give stumpings more than catches (the standard formula gives 8 against 5), because they are rarer and the keeper does the work alone. Keepers take more catches than anyone else, so don’t add a separate keeping bonus or they will run away with the fielding points.
Should players get points just for playing?
Some clubs add a few points per appearance, which rewards turning up week after week and helps the players who rarely bat or bowl. The trade-off is that the leaderboard starts measuring availability as much as performance. If you want it, keep it small: a fraction of a wicket.
Can we change the formula halfway through a season?
Only if you rescore every match already played. Otherwise early-season performances are worth different amounts from later ones and the table stops being fair. Decide before the first game, or recompute the whole season when you change it.
Sources
Your club’s formula, scored from every Play-Cricket scorecard. The MVP leaderboard is free forever.