Aaron Finch - The Best Cricketer Of The Week

It is always a pleasure to have a different name as Cricketer of the Week and, whilst it is not a debut appearance, Aaron Finch's top spot is a welcome break from the dominance of Messrs Harmer, Khan and Patel. It will come as a surprise to nobody that Finch's record-breaking week sees him top the charts with an extraordinary 433 points. Over  and above his world beating 172 against Zimbabwe he also got 68* against the sterner opposition of Pakistan so he was always a strong favourite . Once you add this to sparkling strike rates in both these performances it all adds up to a week of dominance from the Aussie batsman. It has been a year of three thirds for the Victorian. He started the year with a series of dominant performances in the Sheffield Shield for Victoria before going AWOL for the first three quarters of the IPL. This could be the beginning of a spell of world class form for the batsman that could see him become a real force in time for the World Cup next year. His performance this week sees him rocket up the overall table and seems him take his place back in the top ten again. He has now overleaped such cricketing luminaries as AB De Villiers, Virat Kohli and Joe Root to seal his position in seventh place. 

Finch is not the only player to rise higher than a Donald Trump blimp in the overall table this week; Jofra Archer has taken his opportunity to build up form with the Sussex 2nd XI with two games in a day against Kent 2nd XI. This would have boosted his match fitness and led to the impressive 3/24 plus 24 runs in his first T20 Blast game against Essex. Overall the young English player has got eight wickets this week. We are used to praising Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel for their domestic form but as we move into a period of short form domestic cricket, I fully expect Archer to draw the plaudits going forward.  The lower-middle half of the table is so tightly packed that Archer's weekly score of 295 has seen him rise 6 places to 13th. With the three players in front of him (JP Duminy, Nathan Lyon and JP Duminy) all currently inactive, a busy spell in the T20 Blast could see Archer force his way to his highest position all year. 

It has been a disappointing week for our three Cricketing mercenaries who have taken refuge in Canada. Whilst Sunil Narine's 201 seems a decent score, a majority of points are picked up from economy and strike rate points with the West Indian bagging just two wickets and 71 runs from his three games this week. It still seems a mystery to me how a player that performs so explosively in the IPL fails to replicate this form in other T20 competitions around the world. When it comes to the other two more high profile players, it seems to be a battle between the two Australian outcasts who can show the most penance for their actions through performing as badly as humanly possible. This week it was David Warner who seemed to do better than his former captain, claiming 72 points - but with only 12 of these coming from the bat his returns seem far from emphatic. It seems a suitable point to mention that he was having a far from explosive year even before this ban. On the week before Sandpaper gate, the batsman was in a lowly 17th place. Steve Smith followed up his impressive 61 against Vancouver with scores of 10 and 3 to claim just 13 points overall for the week. Warner has just about scored enough to overtake Smith in the overall table but to say that this lacklustre tournament is producing lacklustre performances is something of an understatement. 

I am not usually one to dwell on disappointment, I usually leave that to my girlfriend, however the tussle between the two batting captains, Root and Kohli, has turned into more of a bottle than a battle. After Kohli scored just 9 against Ireland and 20 in the first game against England, Root saw his counterparts ineptitude and matched it with a duck in the same game. Not many would have expected the two players to finish the week lower placed than they started but due to their damp squibs and Finch's pyrotechnics both players dropped a place in the overall league. It goes without saying that Kohli would have been the happier of the two as he draws himself to within 15 points of overtaking Root just before the second T20 this evening. 

Week

Aaron Finch - 433

Jofra Archer- 295

Sunil Narine - 201

Jos Buttler - 119 

Shakib Al Hasan - 132

Jeetan Patel - 100

David Warner - 72

Virat Kohli- 59

Rashid Khan - 50 

Simon Harmer - 23

Steve Smith - 13

Joe Root - 0

Ravi Ashwin - dnp 

Hashim Amla- dnp 

George Bailey - dnp 

Quinton De Kock- dnp 

AB De Villiers- dnp 

JP Duminy - dnp 

Dean Elgar - dnp 

Ravi Jadeja - dnp 

Nathan Lyon - dnp 

Mitchell Marsh - dnp 

Shaun Marsh - dnp 

Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 4145

Jeetan Patel - 3475
Rashid Khan - 3392

Jos Buttler - 3040

Sunil Narine- 2818

Kane Williamson -2405

Aaron Finch - 2303

Joe Root - 2245

Virat Kohli- 2230

AB De Villiers- 2010

Nathan Lyon - 1833

JP Duminy - 1737

Jofra Archer - 1704

Ravi Ashwin - 1588

Shakib Al Hasan - 1571

Hashim Amla - 1524

Shaun Marsh- 1498

Dean Elgar- 1484

Mitchell Marsh - 1425

Quinton de Kock - 1292

Ravi Jadeja - 1201

David Warner - 824

Steve Smith - 799

George Bailey - 631