Jeetan Patel - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Jeetan Patel will never get as much credit as Simon Harmer due to the piece of silverware that sits in Essex's trophy cabinet - but this week the Warwickshire captain tops our weekly table for the fourth time. This draws him equal with his South African counterpart, Harmer. It has been a week of Royal London One Day Cup toil for Patel, who is used to having things easier for Wellington. He has has two complete washouts in the last three matches and a couple of average performances including a single wicket against Northamptonshire. His position at the top of the weekly table is largely down to last night's 3/51 against Durham and contributions in the field in that match and in the previous. He also benefits from playing two games when a majority of point scoring contributors have only (just about) managed one. The New Zealand bowler still sits in fourth position overall but is drawing in on third place Sunil Narine who has a period of time out of the game after his IPL toils. 

The phrase 'famine or feast' has been applied to Rashid Khan throughout 2018 with a long list of inconsistent performances in both the World Cup Qualifiers as well as the IPL. He took this to a new height this week with two high profile performances that show off two very different sides of his character. In last week's IPL final defeat, Rashid would have been disappointed to not get anything in the wicket column - however his economy was strangling low. His economy of 6 from his 4 overs was coupled with that rare of a thing - a T20 maiden. This does not hide the fact that he got a mere 15 points from this game. His other performance came this week for a World-XI playing the West Indies at Lord's for charity. Here the Afghanistan spinner got the prize wickets of Evin Lewis and Marlon Samuels but had a sky high economy - exactly double what he got in the IPL final. Overall it would have been a disappointing week for the man who sits second in our overall table losing, as he did, both games. He is regularly placing outside the top five in our weekly table and may be concerned about his placing with Bangladesh and India round the corner for Afghanistan. 

They need resilience these Cricketers. Five weeks ago, AB De Villiers was the best cricketer of the week and then was at the foot of the table the following week. This week Simon Harmer has done the same thing with a yield of just 11 points from his two games this week. This equates to one run and a catch in the game against Surrey. A fallow period for wickets for the best cricketer in the world statistically. The table topping South African bowler can take hope from the fact that second place Rashid Khan also had a poor week but will not be able to rest on his laurels as Essex try and reach the knock out stage of the Royal London One Day Cup. 

Week 

Jeetan Patel - 160
Dean Elgar- 117
Jos Buttler - 111
Joe Root - 92
Kane Williamson - 67 
Rashid Khan - 64
Shakib Al Hasan - 53
Jofra Archer - 29
Ravi Jadeja - 20
Simon Harmer - 11
Hashim Amla - dnp 
Ravi Ashwin- dnp 
George Bailey - dnp 
Quinton De Kock - dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Aaron Finch- dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh- dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 
Sunil Narine- dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 3106
Rashid Khan - 2966
Sunil Narine- 2617
Jeetan Patel - 2593
Kane Williamson -2405
Jos Buttler - 2175
Virat Kohli- 2171
AB De Villiers- 2010
Joe Root - 1844
Nathan Lyon - 1789
JP Duminy - 1737
Hashim Amla - 1524
Dean Elgar- 1484
Mitchell Marsh - 1425
Ravi Ashwin - 1370
Shakib Al Hasan - 1321
Quinton de Kock - 1292
Aaron Finch - 1243
Shaun Marsh- 1011
Jofra Archer - 994
Ravi Jadeja - 961
David Warner - 752
Steve Smith - 706
George Bailey - 631