Shakib Al Hassan - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Battling against adversity is one of the signs of a good sportsperson. This is especially needed if you are a cricketer representing a nation outside the top four Test playing nations. Your games are fewer and further between than if you represent one of the big four nations, meaning that when patches of games do come along you have to hit form straight away. Shakib Al Hassan has done just that. At the start of the week he was one of just three players from our list to have not played in 2018. By the end of the week he finds himself seventh in the overall points. From his two games in the Tri-series against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, the Bangladeshi All-rounder bagged 6 wickets and a total of 104 runs. It seems fitting that he ended this stellar week receiving the news that he will enter the IPL auction as one of the marquee signings with a base price of RS 2 Crore. Shakib's form is on the up. 

Which brings us to two bowlers whose form has reversed this week. Rashid Khan has been decelerating week by week since the start of January, culminating in him receiving 0 points this week from his one game representing the Adelaide Strikers. This fruitless week sees him drop from seventh to fourteenth position overall. In a reverse situation Ravi Ashwin has bounced back from an uninspiring First Test against South Africa to get five wickets in India's second Test loss. This takes him from thirteenth to sixth position overall and makes him India's top ranking player so far in 2018. From the last week these two players appear to be heading in different directions but, if rumours are to be believed, they both could be heading to Chennai after the IPL auctions. 

Finch is another player with a dramatic turn off fortunes from week 2 to week 3. With a yield of just 2 points in the second week, he has joined up with Australia and scored back to back centuries to see him placed second in the rankings for the week and move up to third overall. He has gone from zero to hero and become the fastest player to ten ODI hundreds from Australia doing so in his 84th innings. 

With some Aussies in the ascendency, the 2018 form of two of their 2017 powerhouses has been more underwhelming. Steve Smith and David Warner have not taken to January as well as they ended 2017. Smith scored exactly 50 runs in the last 20 days of December but just 169 in the first 20 of January. Warner has a similar split of 211 to 101 and it is perhaps his form that is the most surprising as many would have expected  him to have thrived in the white ball format. They find themselves in 15th and 19th respectively and outside the top three Australians. 

Another surprise is the continual success of JP Duminy. He finds himself still flying high in the overall list and is the only player to have featured in the top six best performing players every week in January. This week he got his highest yield of points yet with scores of 71 runs and 2 wickets from his 2 games this week - his strike rate of 189.18 and a 36 run over for the Cape Cobras against the Knights being the most eye catching. 

Week

Shakib Al Hasan - 379

Aaron Finch - 303

Ravi Ashwin- 301

Joe Root - 257

JP Duminy- 241

Virat Kohli - 218

Nathan Lyon - 170

AB de Villiers - 150

Jofra Archer- 134

Kane Williamson - 134

Mitchell Marsh - 116

Hashim Amla- 113

Dean Elgar- 111

Jos Buttler - 96

Simon Harmer - 88

Steve Smith- 71

Quinton de Kock - 62

David Warner - 57

George Bailey - 56

Jeetan Patel - 50

Rashid Khan - 0

Ravi Jadeja - dnp 

Shaun Marsh - dnp 

Sunil Narine - dnp 

Overall

JP Duminy - 580

Joe Root - 483

Aaron Finch - 479

Kane Williamson - 470

Nathan Lyon - 445

Ravi Ashwin - 435

Shakib Al Hasan - 379

Jos Buttler - 356

Simon Harmer - 351

Jofra Archer - 344

AB De Villiers- 290

Mitchell Marsh - 287

Virat Kohli- 261

Rashid Khan - 225

Steve Smith - 204

Shaun Marsh- 196

Quinton de Kock - 193

Dean Elgar- 156

David Warner - 133

Hashim Amla - 120

George Bailey - 112 

Jeetan Patel - 108

Ravi Jadeja - ytp 

Sunil Narine- ytp