A pair I return to regularly is the County Championship's Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel. Harmer has escaped from his Royal London One Day Cup malaise and returned to his big scoring ways in the four day game against Yorkshire. His yield of 393 is his highest for a month and sees him named Cricketer of the Week yet again. He has also overtaken Rashid Khan whose 89 points this week sees him fall back to second - 199 points behind his South African rival. With no Afghanistan fixtures forthcoming, this could be Harmer's chance to force the lead to an unattainable level as the English summer progresses. Jeetan Patel is another player who is rapidly climbing up the table. His 218 points this week puts clear daylight between him and fourth place Sunil Narine. With the West Indian spinner not playing for a fortnight in which Warwickshire play three fixtures, the top three could really draw away as we approach July.
Which players have impressed the most in England matches this week? Callum McLeod? Shaun Marsh? Moeen Ali? From our list it is two unlikely beneficiaries who sit sixth and seventh in the weekly league. Joe Root has been comparatively quiet this week but his 201 is his highest weekly yield since Week 11 when he was playing warm up matches against a New Zealand XI. Whilst we have been more used to seeing him pick up points for his bowling of late, it is refreshing to see the England Test captain back in the driving seat with the bat - and all with healthy run rates. Whilst he is neither winning nor deciding games he is contributing. On the other side of that particular coin is Jos Buttler. This week he scored 31 points less than Joe Root (albeit playing one fewer game) but his performance in yesterday's ODI was both decisive and match- winning. His ability to get big scores is a trait he has carried over from his IPL campaign and he is using it to great effect against the Aussies. The Englishmen sit in 8th and 5th place respectively in the overall rankings.
He has had a torrid season of it so far but Shaun Marsh's Week was undoubtably his best of 2018. It is always good when one of the lower ranked players overall pops his head up near the top of the weekly rankings and we have seen that this week from the Australian batsman. Nineteenth out of twenty four in the overall league, Marsh's 155 in two games sees him finish 5th this week. Consistency is the watch word for Marsh. This century is his first for Australia since 2013. He'll need to pick up the pace in order to escape the bottom of our table. Marsh's team mate, Aaron Finch, has proved that his big scoring Week last time out was something of a blip. This week his score of 19 is back to his most recent form of pretty unimpressive batting. He has found himself sliding down the order for Australia and might find his place under pressure on the form of this week. The fact that the Australian team has only two competing players from our list has shown the huge effect that the ball tampering scandal has had on the ODI side. Whilst Marsh and Finch's weeks were both markedly different, the fact that Messrs. Smith and Warner are gearing up for the inaugural Global T20 Canada league means they should probably be counting their blessings.
Starting the week in uncharacteristically poor positions, the Indian spin twins of Ravi Ashwin and Ravi Jadeja took advantage of a very green looking Afghanistan to claim 458 between them. With 240 points, Jadeja has pulled off a Shaun Marsh-style performance of his own and managed to place second this week despite being bottom of the overall table (if you discount currently inactive players.) This really does go against his disappointing performances this year for Saurashtra and Chennai. When Jadeja is representing India he steps it up in a way that he struggles to in domestic cricket. Overall he really does find himself off the pace and is bottom of a pile of four players between 1200 and 1300 points and a long way off Mitchell Marsh in 17th. Another Indian player who would be disappointed with his overall ranking is 12th placed Ashwin. Despite scoring less than Jadeja this week, he has improved his overall position more than any other player. His 218 points saw him overtaking Hashim Amla, Dean Elgar, Finch, Shakib Al Hasan and Mitchell Marsh in what is a very close middle of the table. It remains to be seen whether these two senior figures will play a huge part in the upcoming Irish games but Ashwin is ideally placed for a big push in the forthcoming series against England.
No comments:
Post a Comment