His timing has been nothing short of incredible. Two weeks ago Shakib Al Hasan sat at the bottom of the table with 0 points. Two weeks later he sits atop the weekly total for the second week running and is only behind JP Duminy overall. The common bond that both these players share is the sheer amount of games they have played in over a comparatively short period of time. Shakib and Duminy have squeezed in five games over the last fortnight which sees them both riding high on the table. With the likes of Joe Root and Aaron Finch about to complete their fifth ODI of the year just behind them, they do seem to have s comfortable lead.
Jofra Archer and Rashid Khan, the wunderkinds of bowling, appear to be unable to operate in tandem. When one of them is in the ascendancy the other underperforms. Last week Archer squeezed into the top ten performers of the week whilst Khan crapped out with a round zero. This week the pair have switched places with Rashid sixth in the table with his five wickets in a week for the Adelaide Strikers, whilst Jofra Archer's paltry 31 points comes from one wicket and a handful of runs in his two games for the now eliminated Hobart Hurricanes. Their relative inconsistency puts them side by side in the overall table just outside the top ten, with Archer claiming a five point lead on his Afghanistani rival.
His performances have not been spoken about with lofty tones in the ODI series between Australia and England, but Mitchell Marsh has been performing solidly for the home side. His above average performances with both bat and ball place him in good stead in the table but he is also going the extra mile with his batting and bowling bonus points with 90 of his 212 points this week coming from strike rate, economy and batting bonus points. He will also have cause to feel hard done by due to the manner of his dismissals in both games this week - sent back for 55 and 32 on the receiving end of some outstandingly high quality return catches.
It seems to be a growing trend of these posts but we are, again, seeing some players we would have expected big things from hugely underperforming. Steve Smith and David Warner have been on this list all January and are only getting themselves deeper into bother. Warner's yield of 21 points from two games - all from runs - is particularly eye opening. AB De Villiers is a player we can join to their ranks this week. He underperformed in the last Test against India and walked away with just 31 runs - 20 of which came from opportunities in the field. Root was also underwhelming this week - only turning up in one of the ODI and getting out for 27. He finds himself outside of the top five of the week for the first time.
Two players who are on a fairly steep upward curve this week, albeit from a pretty dire base level, are George Bailey and Hashim Amla. Both players scored more in the last week than their total runs up to this point in the year. Bailey finally turned it on for Hobart (too late some would add) with two scores in the thirties and with a very healthy strike rate to boot - especially against the Melbourne Stars where he got a 20 ball 32. Amla also did well with cumulative runs of 113 in his two innings in the final Test against India. This puts these players into the top ten for the week and drags Amla into a bunch of South African players in the middle of the overall table.
No comments:
Post a Comment