Shane Warne has wrapped up the 2006-07 Midwinter-Midwinter, the rickeyre.com BoG award for this summer’s Ashes series.
(BoG stands for Best on Ground, a more appropriate term I believe than MVP)
The Midwinter-Midwinter is not an Award, Trophy, Prize or such, it is simply the Midwinter-Midwinter. Named after one of the few cricketers to have played for both sides in Australia v England Test competition.
Billy Midwinter was sensationally poached on the 1878 Australian tour of England. Midwinter was about to take the field in Australia’s tour match against Middlesex at Lord’s when none other than Dr WG Grace burst into the dressing room, kidnapped him, and rushed him in a cab to The Oval to play for Gloucestershire against Surrey.
Points are awarded on a 3-2-1 basis to the BoG for each day’s play of each Test in the Ashes series. Where a day is shortened for any reason, a lesser number of points (2-1 or even just 1) may be awarded. The Midwinter-Midwinter was first awarded in 2005 as a reaction to the creation of the Compton-Miller Medal, Shane Warne was the inaugural winner in 2005 with 18 points, five clear of Andrew Flintoff.
The final points for 2006-07:
16: Shane Warne;
10: Stuart Clark, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting;
9: Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Kevin Pietersen;
8: Brett Lee;
7: Michael Hussey;
6: Matthew Hoggard;
5: Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden;
4: Michael Clarke;
3: Alastair Cook, Andrew Flintoff, Monty Panesar;
2: Justin Langer, Chris Read, Andrew Strauss, Andrew Symonds;
1: Steve Harmison.
The complete spreadsheet with the daily breakdown of points can be seen here. The Midwinter-Midwinter will, I trust, return in 2009. No promises, but I might get around to doing some retrospective Midwinter-Midwinters for past Ashes series some day.