Mohammad Amir emerges as the most impactful bowler despite finishing behind Alzarri Joseph on the wicket-takers’ chart
ESPNcricinfo stats team03-Oct-2022Jamaica Tallawahs won the CPL 2022 final against Barbados Royals against expectations, considering how dominant Royals had been through the league stage, losing just two games. So it is not a surprise that the Smart Stats honours at the end of the tournament were completely dominated by Royals players.Royals allrounder Kyle Mayers was the MVP of the tournament. He put together stellar performances with bat and ball, scoring 366 runs and taking eight wickets.ESPNcricinfo LtdAccording to ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats, which takes into account not just the runs scored and wickets taken, but also the match context and quality of those runs and wickets, Mayers had a total impact score of 669. He was comfortably in first place, ahead of his opening partner Rahkeem Cornwall, who scored 242 runs and took seven wickets.Mayers started the tournament exceptionally well. In the first game, against St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, Mayers scored 73 runs from 46 balls.His best performance came against St Lucia Kings in a rain interrupted game. On that occasion, Mayers took all four wickets of the Kings innings in just two overs, conceding just four runs.Cornwall had the second-highest impact in the tournament after contributing with bat and ball in critical junctures. His 91 from 54 balls with 11 sixes in Qualifier 1 helped Royals go past the Guyana Amazon Warriors comfortably.There is little to separate the rest in the list. Faf du Plessis struck at 168.52, while Sunil Narine continued his outstanding run with the ball going at just 4.8 runs per over. Shakib Al Hasan and Jason Holder complete the top six on the Smart Stats list.ESPNcricinfo LtdSmart Wickets
While the batters were impactful at various times, some bowlers stood out with match-winning performances and key wickets at crucial stages of the game.Mohammad Amir, who missed the final for Tallawahs, did well in their journey to the title round. He picked up 16 wickets and was the fourth-highest wicket-taker in the tournament. Although Alzarri Joseph picked up 18 wickets to be the highest wicket-taker, ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats placed Amir ahead of him.Ten of Amir’s 16 wickets were those of top-three batters. His economy in the powerplay was just 4.99, and he picked up nine wickets in that phase. Amir bowled in the tough phases and delivered almost each time. In contrast, Joseph took just five wickets of top-three batters and averaged 29.25 in the powerplay. In terms of Smart Wickets, Amir was the standout bowler in the CPL, where his 16 wickets were valued at 21 Smart Wickets.ESPNcricinfo LtdBest performances
Mayers and Cornwall also took the top two positions in the list of best individual performances.The match-wise top impact positions was dominated by top-order batters. Mayers’ all-round show against Kings took the top spot. Mayers scored 36 runs in 23 balls and picked up four wickets in just two overs to win the match for Royals then. Cornwall’s incredible hitting in Qualifier 1 against Guyana was the second most impactful performance in the tournament.
There were two performances from Brandon King that made the top five. One was in the tournament opener against Patriots, when he scored 89 runs from 57 deliveries. The other one, albeit in a losing cause, was against Amazon Warriors. King scored 104 runs from 66 balls in a total of just 166 then, and the second highest score for Tallawahs was just 15.
