Photo Credit: Professional Cricketers’ Association
Southern Vipers all-rounder collects two more trophies alongside £10,000 prize money.
Georgia Adams concluded a stunning 2023 campaign by being named both the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy Player of the Year and PCA Women’s Domestic Overall MVP.
Having already won the individual Charlotte Edwards Cup award earlier in the summer, Adams continued her fine form throughout the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy to finish at the top of the MVP table.
Across the competition, the Southern Vipers player scored 546 runs at an average of 49.63, with her highest score of 94* against The Blaze being one of five half-centuries as she finished second in the run scoring charts.
Adams was also the fourth highest wicket taker, her 20 scalps coming at 24.15 runs apiece, with 4-30 against Central Sparks being her best performance. As a result, she accumulated 206.69 MVP points in total, 53 clear of Lauren Winfield-Hill in second place.
The all-rounder’s consistency across formats also meant she won the PCA Women’s Domestic Overall MVP by more than 130 points from Bryony Smith, finishing with 488.05 MVP points. Alongside winning the Charlotte Edwards Cup and Rachael Heyhoe Flint MVP titles, Adams was second in The Hundred standings and finished with a total of 931 runs and 46 wickets across all formats.
The Player of the Year is selected by the PCA Most Valuable Player Rankings, powered by Argentex. Adams led both charts for most of the season to win the awards. The formula enables players to score or lose MVP points on every ball based on their expected performance for that ball in comparison to CricViz’s extensive historical database of 50-over fixtures, with the venue being played at also taken into account.
After receiving the awards, a visibly delighted Adams said: “I am absolutely ecstatic and taken aback. I don’t think any player goes into a season foreseeing that you’re going to win three MVP awards so I am absolutely chuffed to bits but it’s not been easy at times.
“It’s been a bit of a rocky road with the Vipers with a different challenge for me this year batting in the middle and in 50-over cricket I’ve fluctuated in different roles but one that I’ve loved as its challenged me mentally as a batter.
“To go and do the domestic double is insane, the last five games of cricket we played were special and you can’t win awards without a strong team dynamic. In my most important moments I was massively supported at the other end, it goes a long way and you need good people around you to go out and play positively and your own way. It’s been thoroughly enjoyable and a season I’ll never forget.
“I worked really hard in the winter with my bowling coach Darren Flint on loading my armoury up with a few more variations with the ball and slight technical improvements. It’s been quite nice to live more of an all-rounder lifestyle.”
The 29-year-old has now won successive PCA Women’s Domestic Overall MVP awards after her 2022 success with 281 MVP points, adding to her Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy MVP win in 2020 which was the inaugural domestic women’s award.
“The MVP has been a great addition into the women’s game, with the way the women’s game has grown in the last three or four years it’s something that we’ve not had much exposure to. It makes it competitive and also rallies people around you.
“The Vipers girls have been so supportive of me in particular with my MVP awards and the race this season. They’ve been saying ‘come on we’ve got to do this for Gads’ and ‘let’s get Gads on so she can get some poles and some MVP points’ which has been nice.
“In the last group game Georgia Elwiss dropped a catch off my bowling and she said ‘oh no, I’ve just dropped you more points’ and I told her it’s the last of my worries, don’t worry about that. It’s been a nice addition and its certainly an added element to the game and brings some fun and competitiveness and its pretty smart.”
Dominating domestic cricket throughout 2023, the calls on social media following each MVP award for Adams largely focus on England honours and the Vipers skipper reveals a mind-set shift has aided her ability to close out the noise.
“My younger self was so fixated on playing for England whereas now as captain I’m just focused on the team how the team can to be successful. In a way it does help and I am of a mind-set now that I’m living the dream, I have a professional contract and I love playing my cricket for the Vipers, I couldn’t have asked for a better team or coaching and support staff and its showing in the way I perform.
“I’m playing the best cricket in my life. England is always something that’s in the back of my mind because everybody wants to represent their country and I’d love to take on the challenge and give it a go if it ever came my way but equally if it doesn’t happen I am very grateful and thankful for what I’ve got right now.”
Winfield-Hill enjoyed another fine summer in List A cricket, after being the format MVP in 2022, to finish second in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy MVP standings and top the run scoring charts.
She produced several sparkling knocks to finish with a total of 616 runs at an average of 51.00, her highest score of 116* coming alongside five half-centuries as she finished with 153.85 MVP points.
Smith enjoyed a fine summer in the shortest formats of the game, claiming second and fourth placed finishes in the Charlotte Edwards Cup and The Hundred respectively. However, she also produced vital runs at the top of the order in the 50-over format alongside picking up important wickets and finished with an overall MVP points total of 351.74.
Her South East Stars team-mate Paige Scholfield took third place in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and produced the highest batting score of the competition with 134* against Western Storm.
That innings came little more than a week after another fine century against Thunder as Scholfield finished with a total of 439 runs. She also picked up eight wickets for her side to finish with 150.50 points, while her combined total of 261.50 MVP points placed her fifth in the Domestic Overall MVP table.
Tammy Beaumont was third in the overall standings, her 76 in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint trophy final moving up her the leaderboard. She accumulated 408 runs for The Blaze across the two domestic competitions as well as 290 runs in The Hundred, during which she produced the competition’s highest ever score of 118.
Central Sparks’ Georgia Davis emerged as the leading wicket taker in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy. She snared 27 victims in total at an average of 14.77.
Northern Diamonds’ PCA Rep Katie Levick was second with 24 wickets, while Nadine de Klerk of The Blaze finished with the best figures as she took a fantastic 7-33 against Northern Diamonds early in the season.
View the women’s domestic MVP Rankings.
