Sourav Ganguly is the only player to win four consecutive Man-of-the-Match awards in ODIs. He did it against Pakistan in Toronto in 1997 © AFP

India's hot start to the 2008 Asia Cup was in part due to Suresh Raina's form. He scored 101, 84 and 116 in the first three ODIs and was the Man of the Match in each of them. Monopolising the award in consecutive games is no mean feat, so the List decided to look at players who have done precisely that, and those who went years without an award.

Raina is the tenth player to take a hat-trick of Man-of-the-Match awards. Of the other nine, only three are specialist batsmen and none are specialist bowlers. Mohinder Amarnath won the first two of his three awards in the semi-final and final of the 1983 World Cup and completed the hat-trick in a home ODI against Pakistan in September that year.

Lance Klusener was Man of the Match in four of South Africa's nine matches during the 1999 World Cup, and three of them - against England, Sri Lanka, and Kenya - were in a row. He missed out against Zimbabwe, although he scored 52 and took a wicket, but returned to monopolise the award against Pakistan. Graham Gooch is the only other player to win three in a row during a World Cup. He did it in 1987, against West Indies, Sri Lanka and India .

Aravinda de Silva has two Man-of-the-Match hat-tricks. The first came in Colombo in 1996 against Australia and Zimbabwe. His second was in Sharjah in 1997, where he scored 60 against Zimbabwe, and 97 and 134 against Pakistan. Sourav Ganguly is the only player to have won four in a row; all of them were against Pakistan in Toronto in 1997.

Chaminda Vaas, the fourth-highest wicket-taker in ODIs, played the most matches before his maiden Man-of-the-Match award. Vaas made his debut in 1994 but it wasn't until his 164th ODI in 2001 that he won his first award by taking 3 for 20 against New Zealand in Colombo.

The longest gap between awards belongs to Javagal Srinath, who was the Man of the Match five times in his 229-ODI career. His fourth award came in January 1998, when he took 5 for 23 against Bangladesh in Dhaka. Ninety-three matches, spanning five years, went by before Srinath was Man of the Match again, this time in the 2003 World Cup. Mahela Jayawardene's 83 ODIs between December 2001 and August 2005 is the longest streak without an award for a batsman.

Jayawardene also features in the table of players with the longest gap between Man-of-the-Match awards in Tests. He won his first in his fourth Test, in which he scored 167 against New Zealand in 1999. The second came two Tests later, against India in Colombo. The third, however, took a while, coming only in 2004, after 51 Tests, for scoring 237 against South Africa in Galle.

Jason Gillespie was Man of the Match only twice in his 71-Test career. And those awards came nearly nine years apart. The first was in his eighth Test, at Headingley in 1997, when Gillespie ripped through England with 7 for 37. That was his only award for his bowling, for the next time Gillespie won, it was for scoring 201 not out against Bangladesh in Chittagong in 2006.

Only one player has bagged four consecutive Man-of-the-Match awards in Tests. Muttiah Muralitharan did it in Sri Lanka in 2001 when he took 42 wickets in four matches: one each against India and Bangladesh and two against West Indies.

Ian Botham won three in a row during his Ashes in 1981. Wasim Akram's last three awards were consecutive and took his tally to 17, the highest at the time. He's been overtaken since by Jacques Kallis, the most recent player to win three in a row. Kallis' 20 Man-of-the-Match awards are followed by Murali's 18.

Click here for the full tables.

Note: All numbers exclude matches in which no award was given, such as rain-affected matches, early Tests, etc.

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George Binoy is a staff writer at Cricinfo

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