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The BBL06 MVP: The final results

Chris Lynn of the Heat raises his bat after defeating the Hobart Hurricanes during the Big Bash League match between the Brisbane Heat and the Hobart Hurricanes at the Gabba in Brisbane, Friday, Dec. 30, 2016. (AAP Image/Dan Peled)
Expert
22nd January, 2017
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He might have played just five games, but Brisbane’s Chris Lynn has taken out the BBL06 MVP award – in a canter, too.

Heading into the final week of action, it was going to take a minor miracle for any of the BBL’s 163 non-Chris Lynns to chase down the big-hitting Queenslander. As we’ll see below, no one got close; Lynn was the only player to reach double digits in the voting over the five-week regular season.

Call it skill, call it luck, call it an obvious flaw in a hastily designed and poorly thought out voting system, it matters not. Lynn, with his consistently destructive batting, was the most valuable player in BBL06.

He finished third on the runs table with 309, 55 behind leading run scorer Ben Dunk and 45 behind Aaron Finch, in three fewer hit outs. Lynn’s average – a questionable statistic in T20, but instructive in this case – was 154.5. For those who find mental maths tough, that means he was dismissed twice all tournament. His strike rate of 177.6 was well out in front of everyone except Rob Quiney (work that one out) among those who hit 100 runs or more.

Lynn hit 17 fours and 26 sixes, hitting boundaries off almost one in every four balls he faced. Just two other batsmen hit more sixes than fours: Kieron Pollard (seven 4s and eight 6s) and Ashton Turner (six and eight, respectively).

Chris Lynn of the Heat raises his bat

His two best outings came in the Heat’s second and fourth games, where Lynn stuffed his opponents into an oversized civil war cannon and blasted them to the other side of the planet. Against the Thunder, Lynn his 85 off just 48 balls in a chase where the rest of his side was struggling and bought them back from an imminent defeat. Against the Scorchers in the New Year, Lynn hit 98 not out off 49 balls with 66 of his runs coming from 11 sixes. Eleven sixes!

The highlight of his summer, though, came in the Heat’s third game, against the Hobart Hurricanes at the Gabba. Lynn’s innings had got off to a decent enough start, and after coming in during the second over he stood 21 not out from 13 balls at the end of the Heat’s powerplay.

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That’s the time Shaun Tait comes on, because Tait’s career has gone the full Gump as he reaches the end: you never know what you’re going to get.

What we got was this.

Now, part of this was Shaun Tait. He delivered Lynn a 148km/hour half volley right in Lynn’s arc. But Lynn hit that as crisply and cleanly as a cricket ball has even been hit at the professional level. Channel Ten measured the hit at 121 metres, but if that was a 121-metre hit I’m four foot nothing. It was the exclamation mark on an incredible display of hitting over five games. Chris Lynn is a worthy winner of the BBL06 MVP award.

Oh, right, the rest of the games. Let’s whip through the final six hit outs quickly, shall we?

Match 27: Adelaide Strikers vs Melbourne Renegades
The Strikers started the game needing a win to keep their season alive. It was not forthcoming, as the Adelaide side were condemned to a year outside the finals. Marcus Harris played a stellar hand for the ‘Gades in the first innings, his 85 from 53 balls the steady and solid sort required to build a competitive total. He gets three votes.

Match 28: Melbourne Stars vs Brisbane Heat
It was a case of the ultra depleted versus the super depleted, with neither the Stars or Heat going into the game with their best players. Melbourne’s low 138 first innings score was never going to be enough, and the Heat chased it down with a couple of overs to spare. Mitch Swepson continued his excellent series with the ball – which has seen him picked as the experimental spinner for Australia’s coming Test tour of India – with 2/14 from four overs. He gets three votes for throwing the clamps on Melbourne.

Match 29: Sydney Thunder vs Adelaide Strikers
Adelaide’s season was done, but the Thunder were still a chance to defend their title with a win. It wasn’t to be; the Strikers smashed the Sydney side, piling on 178 and bowling the visitors out for 101 in 15 overs. Ben Dunk’s 65 from 40 set the table, but replacement import Ish Sodhi ate the meal: 6/11 from four overs, he cleaned up the Thunder tail and ended the game all on his own. Sodhi gets four votes, while Dunk gets a secondary vote for his batting display.

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Match 30: Brisbane Heat vs Melbourne Renegades
Friday night was elimination night for Melbourne, and they got home in a bizarre thriller against the Heat. The last over, with the Heat needing 18 runs, unfolded like this: w|6|6|X|w|X|w|.|wX.

Three wickets, three wides, two sixes and one dot ball. Show me a scorecard with an over like that on it and I’ll show you a doctored scorecard. It was pure, unadulterated madness, the kind you would create in Ricky Ponting Cricket 2005 if you bowled with Brian Lara. Anyway, to the matter at hand, the votes are a toss up between Aaron Finch for his 71 off 35, and Brad Hogg for a critical 1/18 from four overs as the Heat looked set to streak away with the game. I’ll give three to Finch, and one to Hogg.

aaron-finch-melbourne-renegades-cricket-big-bash-league-2017

Match 31: Hobart Hurricanes vs Perth Scorchers
Hobart’s season was on the line, and hosting a red-hot Scorchers outfit the home team would have felt… ok maybe not confident, but a step or two below confident. If that’s how they were feeling, it proved prescient, because the Scorchers did Scorcher things and had this one on their terms from the time Adam Voges won the toss.

Like Match 31, it was a toss up between an outstanding batting and bowling performance from the winning side: Mitch Johnson gets three votes for two early wickets and a miserly 15 runs from his four overs (all bowled at critical stages), while Shaun Marsh gets a consolation prize for a very Shaun Marsh 57 from 33 balls.

Match 32: Melbourne Stars vs Sydney Sixers
And here we are! The last game of the year came down to the penultimate over – it shouldn’t have, as Melbourne had the game in hand twice – with the Stars’ abject lack of death bowling precision handing the game, and the last spot in the finals, to Sydney.

In the process, the Stars knocked their cross-town rivals out of the running, quashing a potential MCG, Australia Day eve derby rematch. Lift, Melbourne!

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Sean Abbott gets the votes here for a composed 33 from 17, scoring half of Sydney’s total from the 15th through the end of the 19th and guiding his team home. He’d get four votes, but loses one for a shaky display with the ball.

The Final Leaderboard
There we have it folks: 32 games, 48 vote-winning performances, 35 unique vote winners – my methodology is sound, what are you talking about – and just the one voter who made it into double digits. This was Chris Lynn’s tournament, the rest of the mob were just playing for second.

Name Votes Times Voted
Chris Lynn 13 3
Sean Abbott 7 3
Moises Henriques 7 2
Michael Klinger 6 2
Brendon McCullum 5 3
Shane Watson 5 2
Ben McDermott 5 1
Brad Hogg 4 3
Ben Hilfenhaus 4 1
Dan Christian 4 1
Eoin Morgan 4 1
Fahwad Ahmed 4 1
Ish Sodhi 4 1
Johan Botha 4 1
Ben Dunk 3 3
Aaron Finch 3 1
Ashton Turner 3 1
Cameron White 3 1
Chris Jordan 3 1
Daniel Hughes 3 1
David Willey 3 1
Glenn Maxwell 3 1
Kevin Peterson 3 1
Marcus Harris 3 1
Michael Beer 3 1
Mitchell Johnson 3 1
Mitchell Swepson 3 1
D’Arcy Short 2 1
Andrew Tye 1 1
Brad Hodge 1 1
Clive Rose 1 1
David Hussey 1 1
Scott Boland 1 1
Shaun Marsh 1 1
Tim Paine 1 1

Out of interest, here’s what the votes look like on a team-by-team basis. The Brisbane Heat and Sydney Sixers both finish on 21 votes and seven individual vote-getters, while the Adelaide Strikers earned the fewest votes. The top four vote-winning teams are the four finalists, while the Sydney Thunder had just four individual vote getters over the tournament.

Team Votes Vote Winners
Brisbane Heat 21 7
Sydney Sixers 21 7
Perth Scorchers 17 7
Melbourne Stars 15 6
Hobart Hurricanes 13 5
Melbourne Renegades 13 6
Sydney Thunder 13 4
Adelaide Strikers 11 6

Well, that was a bit of fun. Good luck to the Perth Scorchers, Brisbane Heat, Sydney Sixers and Melbourne Stars in the finals, and may the best team win. By which I mean may the Perth Scorchers win.

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