I am always pleasantly surprised at how fair the points system is. The fact we have only had one player on the top of our weekly league twice (Shakib Al Hasan) is testament to how it highlights the truly outstanding performers of the week. We have also seen it throw up some rather unusual players for credit. This week is one of those weeks. Simon Harmer delivered almost the perfect game for the Warriors against the Dolphins in the Sunfoil Series this week. He grabbed points in every category with the exception of bonus points for runs and for strike rate. His 12 wickets in one game has seen him beat Sunil Narine's highest points score for one week and has also seen him go from a relatively creditable 9th position to third place overall - over such high flyers as Rashid Khan and the aforementioned Sunil Narine.
When it comes to T20 season few players utilise their time better than Narine. The PSL is the first big tournament of 2018 and the spinner has swung into T20 form without pause. Building up on his form for Trinidad and Tobago, he has now joined up with Lahore Qalanders and registered a top ten score in his first two games despite the fact that his team have lost their two opening games. Thus far in the year, Narine has picked up the bulk of his points with the ball but now he is in T20 mode his batting has adjusted accordingly - most notably in his ten ball 28 that earned him 68 points alone. If he matches his bowling form for T&T with that explosive batting he could push himself into the top three overall after passing the 1000 point score this week.
Even with his good start to the year, Kane Williamson is in a world of bother with the bat. He started the year with two weeks in second position lagging behind, first, Jos Buttler and, then, JP Duminy. Since then his poor form has seen him drop week by week. He has now registered single figure scores in 7 of his last 8 games and has an average for February of 17.7. This has seen him struggle to regain his position in the top ten of our overall league. Currently sitting 12th, he is 60 points off Aaron Finch in tenth. With a series of ODI matches against England on the table he will be hoping to turn his form round or face a further embarrassing slip down the league.
Before this week Nathan Lyon and Steve Smith did not have a lot to crow about. Lyon had suffered a bit of a pasting playing for the Prime Minister's XI against England whilst Smith was second bottom in the table ahead of only Jeetan Patel. This week they have played a warm up game against South Africa A and - without setting the world alight - they have performed comfortably. Lyon's economy was flawless and, whilst he only got one wicket, he seemed to limit the team well - with the exception of one dubious over. Smith's scores were also not overly gargantuan, scoring 23 and 25, however his strike rate in the second innings was 192.3 and his mystery spin brought the house down around South Africa A in their second innings. Lyon's 173 points sees his slide out of the top ten arrested and he now sits in eight place whilst his skipper leap frogs a number of players to move him well away from the foot of the table and alongside his compatriot David Warner.
He is tenacious - we will give him that. Facing mounting criticism regarding his captaincy, dropped from the one Day team and usurped at the top of the overall table, JP Duminy had his second best week of 2018 and sits second behind Harmer in this week's top point scorers. His back to back half centuries sees him up one place on our overall league - 41 points behind Kohli. Duminy is now expected to return to domestic cricket where he thrived whereas Kohli seems to have nothing on this week. Dare he dream?
Week
Simon Harmer - 504
JP Duminy - 232
Steve Smith- 188
Jos Buttler - 161
Rashid Khan - 178
Nathan Lyon - 173
Mitchell Marsh - 167
Jofra Archer - 145
Sunil Narine - 134
Joe Root - 111
Ravi Jadeja - 96
Shaun Marsh - 74
Quinton de Kock- 63
David Warner - 55
Virat Kohli - 47
Kane Williamson - 45
Dean Elgar- 27
Aaron Finch - 18
George Bailey - 10
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Hashim Amla - dnp
Ravi Ashwin - dnp
AB De Villiers- dnp
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Overall
Virat Kohli- 1231
JP Duminy - 1190
Simon Harmer - 1169
Rashid Khan - 1166
Sunil Narine- 1036
Mitchell Marsh - 939
Jos Buttler - 851
Nathan Lyon - 834
Ravi Ashwin - 810
Aaron Finch - 735
Joe Root - 733
Kane Williamson - 675
Shakib Al Hasan - 608
Jofra Archer - 550
Hashim Amla - 467
Steve Smith - 463
David Warner - 435
AB De Villiers- 423
Quinton de Kock - 408
Shaun Marsh- 408
Ravi Jadeja - 397
George Bailey - 395
Dean Elgar- 394
Jeetan Patel - 108
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