A bowler takes nineteen wickets across four matches and watches someone with two centuries collect the trophy. Both performances were outstanding, and the choice between them was never going to satisfy anybody.
The player of the series award is decided by a process most supporters have never seen described, and the criteria are far looser than the ceremony suggests.
This guide explains who decides, what they weigh, why bowlers are disadvantaged, and how the award differs from the season-long honours it is often confused with.
Who Actually Decides
The decision is made by a small panel rather than by any formula.
In most bilateral series the match referee and a nominated commentator or former player make the selection, sometimes with input from the broadcast team.
In tournaments a dedicated panel is appointed in advance, which may include officials, media representatives and occasionally a sponsor nominee.
The decision is usually taken before the final session concludes, so that the presentation can proceed immediately, which means late performances occasionally arrive too late to count.
There is no published scoring system in the great majority of competitions, and panels are given discretion rather than instructions.
What the Panel Weighs
| Factor | Influence |
|---|---|
| Match-winning contributions | Highest |
| Consistency across all matches | Very high |
| Raw aggregate runs or wickets | High |
| Performing in difficult conditions | Moderate |
| Being on the winning side | Significant in practice |
| Individual match awards collected | Used as a tiebreak |
| Fielding and captaincy | Rarely decisive |
Being on the winning side matters more than any panel admits. An outstanding individual series in a heavy defeat is recognised occasionally, but the overwhelming majority of awards go to the victors.
Individual match awards function as an informal tally, and a player who collected two of them in a three-match series is very difficult to overlook.
Why Bowlers Are Disadvantaged
The imbalance is real and has structural causes rather than prejudice.
Batting produces a single memorable number, and a double century is easier to recall and describe than a series of four-wicket hauls across different conditions.
Bowling contributions are frequently shared, with two bowlers creating pressure together, which splits the credit in a way a batting innings never is.
Highlights packages favour batting, and panels are influenced by the same footage everyone else watches during the series.
And bowling performances in defeats are especially invisible, since a bowler who takes five in a losing cause is remembered as part of a failure.
How It Differs From Other Awards
- Series awards cover one bilateral contest or tournament
- Match awards cover a single fixture
- Annual awards cover a full calendar of cricket
- Annual awards use voting rather than a small panel
- Annual awards have published eligibility windows
- Series awards are decided on the day with no deliberation period
- Series awards rarely consider matches outside that series
- Only annual awards typically separate formats
The confusion between series and annual awards is common, and it matters because the processes have almost nothing in common. One is a panel decision in an hour, the other is a structured ballot over weeks.
Which Performances Tend to Win
Across competitions, the winning profiles are remarkably consistent.
| Profile | Likelihood of winning | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Two centuries in a winning series | Very high | Memorable, decisive, easily described |
| Twenty wickets in a winning series | High | Hard to ignore, but often shared credit |
| One enormous innings plus two failures | Moderate | Depends whether it won a match |
| Consistent fifties without a hundred | Low | Lacks a headline performance |
| Outstanding series in a defeat | Low | Panels favour the winning side |
| All-round contribution across both disciplines | High | Visible in two columns at once |
All-rounders are the quiet beneficiaries of the current approach. A player contributing two hundred runs and eight wickets appears substantial in both disciplines without leading either, and panels find that combination persuasive.
The consistent accumulator is the most frequently overlooked profile. Four scores between fifty and eighty, all in winning causes, is an extremely valuable series that produces no moment anyone remembers.
Wicketkeepers face the same problem in a sharper form, since their most important contributions are not recorded in a way that reaches a panel at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can two players share the award?
It has happened, though most competitions discourage it, and panels are generally asked to produce a single name.
Does a player have to appear in every match?
No. A player who missed a match through injury or rotation remains eligible, though consistency across the full series is weighed heavily.
Are there points systems anywhere?
A few competitions use a structured points framework, usually in domestic tournaments, but the majority rely on panel judgement.
Why is it announced so quickly?
Because the presentation follows the final ball, which means the panel is deciding during the closing stages rather than afterwards.
The Short Version
Player of the series is chosen by a small panel, usually the match referee with a former player, using discretion rather than a formula. Match-winning contributions, consistency and being on the winning side dominate the decision. Bowlers are structurally disadvantaged because their contributions are shared and less memorable.
A Fairer Approach
Publishing the panel’s reasoning would resolve most complaints, since the arguments against a selection are usually based on assumptions about what was weighed.
A short citation, as used in hall of fame announcements, would cost nothing and turn a contested moment into an explained one.
How Match Awards Feed Into It
The individual match award is a smaller version of the same process and shapes the series decision directly.
It is usually chosen by a single adjudicator, often a former player working for the broadcaster, during the closing stages of the match.
Because it is decided quickly, late contributions can be missed entirely, and a bowler who takes two wickets in the final over of a chase may find the decision already made.
Match awards accumulate into an informal record across a series, and a panel choosing the overall winner will reach for that tally when two candidates look comparable.
That creates a compounding effect, where early visibility leads to a match award which leads to the series award, and a player who performed equally without that early recognition falls behind.
Several competitions have addressed this by appointing the same adjudicator throughout, which at least makes the standard consistent even if it remains subjective.
Format Differences
The award behaves differently depending on the length of the cricket.
In long-format series, the winner is almost always a player whose contribution spanned multiple matches, since individual performances are large enough that only sustained output separates candidates.
In fifty-over series, strike rate and match situation carry more weight, and a player who scored quickly in successful chases is favoured over one with a larger aggregate.
In the shortest format, the award is frequently given for two or three spectacular performances rather than consistency, because consistency is rarer and less visible.
Tournament awards are the hardest of all, since a panel must compare players who faced different oppositions in different conditions across several weeks.
The Disputed Decisions
Certain categories of selection generate argument every time they occur.
Giving the award to a losing player divides opinion sharply, with one side arguing that individual excellence should be recognised regardless and the other that the award belongs to the contest rather than the statistics.
Choosing a batter over a bowler with comparable impact is the most frequent complaint, and it recurs because the imbalance is structural rather than occasional.
Awarding a captain whose personal numbers were modest but whose leadership shaped the result is defensible and almost never popular.
Selecting a player who missed matches is contentious, since a per-match assessment and a total assessment can point to different names.
And decisions that appear to follow the broadcast narrative rather than the scorecard attract the sharpest criticism, which is why the absence of published reasoning causes so much trouble.
What Players Think of It
Professional attitudes to the award are more measured than the public debate.
Most describe it as pleasant but secondary, with the series result mattering considerably more, and several have said publicly that they would trade it for a win.
Bowlers are aware of the imbalance and tend to treat the award as a batting honour, which is a reasonable reading of the historical record.
Younger players value it more, since early recognition affects selection discussions and contract negotiations in a way it does not for established names.
And the players most respected within dressing rooms are frequently those whose contributions never attract it, which is something senior professionals mention often.
That gap between internal and external recognition is the most consistent theme whenever players are asked about individual awards at all.
Designing a Better Process
Several straightforward changes would improve the award without removing the judgement that makes it interesting.
Appointing the panel in advance and naming its members publicly would allow supporters to understand who made the decision and on what basis.
Requiring a short written citation would force the reasoning to be articulated, which tends to improve decisions as well as explaining them.
Delaying the announcement until after the final ball, with the presentation a few minutes later, would ensure late contributions are actually considered.
Publishing a shortlist before the decision would let the discussion happen in public rather than as a reaction to a result.
And recording an explicit expectation that defeats do not disqualify a candidate would address the clearest bias in the current approach.
None of these require a formula, which is important, because a points system would produce defensible decisions that nobody found interesting.
How to Judge a Selection Yourself
A short method makes the argument more productive than the usual exchange of preferences.
List each candidate’s contributions by match, noting the result of each, which immediately shows whether performances coincided with wins.
Identify which contributions changed a result, as opposed to adding to one already decided, since that distinction is what the award is nominally about.
Adjust for conditions, because a hundred on a difficult surface is worth more than a larger score on a flat one and panels frequently neglect this.
Check whether a bowler’s wickets were top-order or tail, as the two are not comparable and aggregate figures hide the difference.
Then choose, and notice how often the honest answer is that two candidates were genuinely inseparable, which is usually what the panel concluded as well.
Why the Award Still Matters
For all its flaws, the award performs a function nothing else does.
It fixes a narrative to a series, giving supporters a single name to associate with a contest that might otherwise blur into the schedule.
It provides a record that survives, since series awards are listed in career summaries long after individual scores are forgotten.
It offers recognition to players from losing sides on the occasions panels are brave enough to give it, which is one of the more generous things the sport does.
And it generates argument, which is a genuine service, because the discussions it produces are usually better informed than the ones about rankings or selections.
A perfectly fair award would end those discussions, and the sport would be slightly poorer for it, which is an odd defence of a flawed process but not an unreasonable one.
The next time a presentation produces an obvious injustice, it is worth checking the four or five contributions that actually decided matches before joining the complaint.
Roughly half the time the panel will turn out to have been right, and the other half the exercise produces a far better argument than the one being made on social media.
Either way it takes five minutes with a scorecard, which is a reasonable price for knowing what you are talking about.
It is also the quickest way to discover which players in a side are doing the valuable work that no trophy will ever be handed out for.
Those are usually the names worth watching in the next series, whatever the presentation party decided at the end of this one.