Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Simon Harmer finishing in top spot in County Championship weeks has been something of a regular fixture this year and it seems fitting that in the final week of the season he sits atop our weekly rankings. What is different this week is the manner in which he has done it. More well known for bowling the ball than hitting or catching it, Harmer bagged headlines this week for a maiden century for Essex and only his second of his career. He also got himself a lot of media attention for a spectacular catch to dismiss County Championship winning captain and flavour of the month Rory Burns. Harmer finishes the busiest part of his season with a thousand point lead over Jeetan Patel - a huge gulf for anyone to hope to catch him. It would take a brave person to not put him as clear favourite for the yearly crown at this point. 

His 2018 has been way under par but his September has been red hot. I talk, of course, of Ravi Jadeja. Despite scoring 0 in August and just 25 in July, Jadeja has had something of a renaissance and scored 721 in September. This despite scoring 0 points across the first two weekends. This week he played an integral part in India's progression to the Asia Cup final though his three wickets and 25 runs against Afghanistan. Lest we forget, this is a player who just two weeks ago was settling himself in for his campaign with Saurashtra in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. In this week of inactivity for a majority of our players, Jadeja finds himself the only Cricketer to move up the table - over-taking Nathan Lyon in 18th place. His progression up the table in September has also been strong. He started the month in second bottom position and has overtaken a quintet of Australians in that time (Warner, Smith, both Marshes and Lyon). If he takes this confidence back to India he may yet find himself mid table after all. 

It has long been said that if Rashid Khan does not perform for Afghanistan then Afghanistan do not perform. This was brought into focus this week as Afghanistan broke the hearts of every underdog supporter in the land and exited the Asia Cup. In his two Super Four games this week he picked up just three wickets whereas in his three games before that he returned seven. It seems fairly obvious that if your top bowler is underperforming you risk more of a chance of not progressing in a competition, but it seems like Rashid is starting to become a bit of a big game bottler. We saw this in his performances for Hyderabad in the IPL also. He will regularly take threefers in low pressure scenarios and against significantly weaker opponents but when the chips are down he fails to follow through. Despite this, Afghanistan's performances in this tournament have won hearts and minds around the cricketing world and has seen Rashid finish third for the week and named number one ODI bowler to go alongside his T20 crown. So not all that bad of a week. As we go forward one would think that it is only he that is likely to challenge Harmer for top spot overall - it all just depends on what opposition is put before him. 

Week

Simon Harmer - 252
Ravi Jadeja - 193
Rashid Khan - 137
Jeetan Patel - 122
Shakib Al Hasan - 30
George Bailey - 27 
Jofra Archer- dnp 
Hashim Amla - dnp 
Quinton De Kock- dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Dean Elgar - dnp 
Aaron Finch- dnp 
Virat Kohli - dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh - dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 
Sunil Narine- dnp 
Joe Root- dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 6025
Jeetan Patel - 5011
Rashid Khan - 4872
Jofra Archer - 4213
Jos Buttler - 3974
Virat Kohli- 3502
Sunil Narine- 3410
Joe Root - 3345
Aaron Finch - 3343
Kane Williamson - 3203
Shakib Al Hasan - 2886
Ravi Ashwin - 2581
JP Duminy - 2336
Hashim Amla - 2091
Quinton de Kock - 2020
AB De Villiers- 2010
Dean Elgar- 1980
Ravi Jadeja - 1947
Nathan Lyon - 1833
Mitchell Marsh - 1663
Shaun Marsh- 1498
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 739

Rashid Khan -The Best Cricketer of the Week

I feel that some players are built for certain situations. Your Jos Buttlers and your AB De Villiers love a protracted T20 tournament. Your Simon Harmers and your Jeetan Patels love a sprawling long form tournament. Rashid Khan enjoys a short intense burst of cricket against high class international opposition. It is here where he excels. And excel he has this week as he has picked up 405 points across his three games in the Asia Cup - a tournament where his team has impressed by matching the big boys stroke for stroke. A rare treat for Afghanistan fans was when Rashid gave everyone a reminder that his first discipline was with the bat as he motored to 57* against Bangladesh. This, coupled with 7 wickets across three games, has put him head and shoulders above the rest this week both overall and in terms of his Asia Cup compatriots. Shakib Al Hasan finishes third this week but with nearly half the amount of Rashid's points whilst Ravi Jadeja, who began the week playing for Saurashtra, picked up 5th place with one amazing performance against Bangladesh when called up at short notice. Interestingly only one of these three have moved position on the overall table; Rashid remains in third but moves closer to Patel in second, Shakib infinitesimally narrows the canyon between tenth and eleventh whilst Jadeja overtakes Mitchell Marsh to claim nineteenth. 

The mystery of Sunil Narine continues. Throughout the year I have mentioned the disproportion between the West Indian spinners performances in the IPL and his performances elsewhere. Clearly a spinner is likely to thrive in Indian conditions but for a player that has also become a powerful T20 opener off the back of that tournament, his dip in form with the bat has been equally inexplicable. In his 16 games for Kolkata this season, Narine got 17 wickets and 357 runs - averaging just over a wicket every match (obviously) and 22.3 with the bat. Fast forward to the CPL where Narine is performing in home conditions and at some of the exact same grounds where he started the year with some exceptionally fine fifty over performances for Trinidad and Tobago. Here he is averaging 5.5 across his 12 games and has got a mere 8 wickets. This has gained him just 436 points across the course of the tournament. I have no answer as to why this drop in form is so stark. It cannot be conditions otherwise he would be a flop in the Regional Super50 competition. It can't be big crowds pumping him up in the IPL because the CPL hasn't been doing too badly in those respects this year. It will have to remain a mystery. 

And there there is George Bailey. People remember George Bailey with the sort of misty nostalgia that one considers ones youth. A transient thought that will occasionally drift into view as you fall asleep. More of a concept than an actual Cricketer. This all changed this week when George Bailey, a figure many considered mythological, rose again and actually played cricket. With a bat and ball and everything. Bailey last featured in our league in Week 13 and has had a laconic 24 weeks off. For such a long period away from the game, the Tasmanian didn't look too shabby in his two games on his way to 81 points in the week, the highlight being an 18 ball 25 batting at 5 versus Victoria. This has seen him break the 700 point threshold. For frame of reference JP Duminy was the first to break 700 in Week 5 and our leader, Simon Harmer, followed suit in Week 8. Bailey is now 638 points away from Steve Smith in 23rd place - a player who broke into the 700s in Week 13. Bailey better hope for a phenomenal Australian Summer. 

Ravi Jadeja - The Best Cricketer of the Week

He has had a torrid year but this week was different. Ravi Jadeja seems to always save his best performances for India and he certainly had a long time to save up the skill needed displayed in the final Test. So far 2018 has seen Jadeja represent Saurashtra and Chennai - both teams reached the finals of the Vijay Hazare Trophy and the IPL respectively, however as the competitions developed the spinner fell increasingly more out of favour with the management. This then led on to his call up for the England tour, a tour in which he was overlooked up until last weekend's dead rubber. Indian fans were left wondering what could have been as Jadeja combined wicket taking with a tenacious batting performance the likes of which the middle order had been lacking throughout the series. It must be frustrating for Jadeja and the teams that he represents that he seemingly performs very well in failing teams but if there is a whiff of success his ability drops quicker than a Muralitharan catch. The scale of Jadeja's performance is shown in how he has rocketed up the overall league. Languishing in second bottom at the start of the week, his 374 points have moved him up three places - and puts Steve Smith and David Warner back in the relegation places alongside a potentially returning George Bailey. 

No one can deny who won the three way melee between Buttler, Kohli and Root this week. After a series that might generously be referred to as underwhelming for the England captain, Joe Root 'did a Jadeja' and saved his best until last with 200 points added to his total in the Final Test. Throughout the Summer the tussle between the two captains seeemd so tight but last week I claimed that Kohli was the undisputed winner....but how clear cut is that? Let's evaluate the series. The first way of gauging success is the raw points each competitor picked up in the ten weeks the Indians have been here. Perhaps surprisingly it is Root who comes out atop that particular league with 1078 compared to Kohli's 1004. Buttler rather lags behind with 753. 1-0 Root. What about highest individual weekly performance? The same pattern emerges. Root's 424 during the ODIs is nearly double the weekly best of Kohli (270) and Buttler (235). The last measurement we will look at is their movement up the table. Buttler began the series out of the Test team but the highest scoring of the trio in fourth place, Kohli was in seventh and Root in ninth. As it stands this week Buttler has made a negative impact on his position, largely due to the surge of Jofra Archer than anything else. Kohli and Root have both moved up a place so the gap remains the same. So it seems pretty decisive that, despite the praise for Kohli and the derision for Root, it is the England captain AND the England team who have had a good Summer. 

A 'ripper' is what I believe he would call it. Jadeja is not the only low scorer of 2018 to have an incongruously high scoring week. Mitchell Marsh returned from injury last week with the score of nine. Using this as something of a jumping board, the Australia A captain decided to push on a bit this week and ended with 220 more, claiming his best score of 2018. A century with the bat plus a little bit of tentative bowling saw the Aussie comfortably head and shoulders over the unproved India A team despite his team's eventual defeat. He has also got his head and shoulders over some of the competition at the foot of the table, leapfrogging his injured brother and becoming the leader of that little pack at the foot of the table. It is starting to get a little late in the year for anyone to make a huge push up the table from this sort of position but if he keeps fit he may see some cricket in the Australian Sumer to help him up to a mid table finish. 

Week 

Ravi Jadeja - 374
Simon Harmer - 303
Mitchell Marsh - 229 
Jofra Archer - 220
Joe Root - 200
Jeetan Patel - 159
Jos Buttler - 131
Sunil Narine - 128
Shakib Al Hasan - 60
Virat Kohli - 49
Dean Elgar - 31
Hashim Amla - dnp 
Ravi Ashwin - dnp 
George Bailey - dnp 
Quinton De Kock- dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy - dnp 
Aaron Finch- dnp 
Rashid Khan - dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 


Overall

Simon Harmer - 5466
Jeetan Patel - 4818
Rashid Khan - 4330
Jofra Archer - 4042
Jos Buttler - 3974
Virat Kohli- 3502
Sunil Narine- 3380
Joe Root - 3345
Aaron Finch - 3343
Kane Williamson - 3203
Shakib Al Hasan - 2642
Ravi Ashwin - 2581
JP Duminy - 2336
Hashim Amla - 2091
Quinton de Kock - 2020
AB De Villiers- 2010
Dean Elgar- 1840
Nathan Lyon - 1833
Mitchell Marsh - 1663
Ravi Jadeja - 1600
Shaun Marsh- 1498
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 631

Simon Harmer - The Best Crickter of the Week

And he's back. After a nine week barren spell wherein the best cricketer in our overall league has been without the weekly accolade to go with it, Simon Harmer finds himself at the top of both trees. Finally liberated from the inconvenience of the T20 Blast, Harmer has found himself back in the long form of the game and loving life again despite his team's 50% success rate across the two games he completed this week. Reunited with Peter Siddle, the South African spinner looks very comfortable with the ball and extends his lead over Jeetan Patel to 509. Despite his high weekly score, Harmer's tally of eight wickets across two matches seems slightly underwhelming. Harmer's 464 was comprised of 255 points accrued for maidens and economies - a trait that has been seen all over the country on these late Summer pitches. Harmer's 54% of points to maidens and economies is similar to the 56% of Ravi Ashwin's total of 196 and Jofra Archer's 30% of 309. The overcast conditions and moisture has enabled the bowlers to exploit the conditions and strangle their opposition. Despite the temperatures being considerably higher, overhead conditions have also helped Sunil Narine return to his stifling economies not seen since the IPL. In a very real way all of the top three can thank clouds for their performances, perhaps I should name weather as Cricketer of the Week. 

And I think we can finally put to bed the Root v Kohli debate. Kohli has won. The two captains are now separated by 308 points and five places on the overall table. Despite this I was hit this week with a revelation - perhaps we have been looking at the wrong battle. Maybe instead of comparing captain to captain, we should have been comparing captain Kohli to vice-captain Buttler. Throughout the series these two players are the ones that have had more parity between them. This week Kohli doubled Root's weekly score but just 14 points separated Kohli from Buttler. This pattern has continued throughout the Test series. After the third test Kohli scored 260, Buttler 235 and Root? 59. Just like the end of The Usual Suspects, we have been looking at the wrong person the whole time. Kohli is still the king of the crop but Buttler would have pushed him harder than Root ever could have done. 

Nine points doesn't seem anything to write home about but Mitchell Marsh's 9 for Australia A against India A were his first points for 21 weeks - by far the longest period away from the game of any of the players in our list. The nine points are slightly disingenuous. Still returning from injury, the Australia A captain was not permitted to bowl and it would be no surprise that he was out of form after such a long period away from the game - especially on difficult Indian pitches. Needless to say the Western Australian will just be happy to be back on a pitch. Just as we have shifted the focus from Root to Buttler, we may have to do a similar thing with Steve Smith. Due to Smith's withdrawal from the CPL, the competition between him and Warner will have to be resumed another time. The gap between Warner and Marsh is now far more interesting. With Warner still involved in the CPL and Marsh with games left in the A-series the 33 point gap could go either way. 

Week

Simon Harmer - 464
Jofra Archer- 309
Ravi Ashwin - 196
Virat Kohli - 144
Jos Buttler - 130
Dean Elgar- 115 
Kane Williamson- 109
Sunil Narine - 108 
Hashim Amla - 78
Joe Root - 72
Jeetan Patel-68
David Warner - 52
Mitchell Marsh- 9
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Quinton De Kock- dnp 
AB de Villiers - dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Ravi Jadeja - dnp 
Rashid Khan - dnp 
Aaron Finch- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 5163
Jeetan Patel - 4659
Rashid Khan - 4330
Jofra Archer - 3822
Jos Buttler - 3843
Virat Kohli- 3453
Aaron Finch - 3343
Sunil Narine- 3252
Kane Williamson - 3203
Joe Root - 3145
Shakib Al Hasan - 2582
Ravi Ashwin - 2581
JP Duminy - 2336
Hashim Amla - 2091
Quinton de Kock - 2020
AB De Villiers- 2010
Nathan Lyon - 1833
Dean Elgar- 1809
Shaun Marsh- 1498
Mitchell Marsh - 1434
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
Ravi Jadeja - 1226
George Bailey - 631

Jeetan Patel - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Whereas the last few weeks have seen a great deal of point scoring going on for our 24 best Cricketers in the world, this week has seen three Cricketers do very well indeed, a few post a score and the rest inactive or in incomplete games. The top accolade this week goes to Jeetan Patel who has returned from the T20 wilderness to impress for Warwickshire in a victory against Middlesex in which he claimed ten wickets - including equalling his best ever yield of wickets in an innings. He also claimed his 800th first class wicket in the game. This performance has seen the New Zealand captain move up the table and slide ever closer towards Simon Harmer in top spot. There is now just 108 points between first and second place as Harmer finishes his game against Hampshire this afternoon. Joining Patel up the top both this week and overall is Rashid Khan who also impressed in his three ODIs against Ireland. His eight wickets in the week sees him fall just short of top spot this week but sees the top three of Harmer, Patel and Khan move further away from the chasing pack. There is now 617 points between Khan and Jos Buttler in fourth place. With the County Championship season drawing to a close the big question is whether Harmer and Patel can put enough space between themselves and others to finish in a competitive position as they are inactive through the autumn?

The CPL must be a tantalising payday for the stars of world cricket, however for those out of form it must be a desperate place to be. With games spread out geographically and temporally more than you would normally see in a franchise tournament, if you are out of touch then it must be a uniquely difficult place to pick up any momentum. We have previously seen this with David Warner but this week Hashim Amla and Steve Smith have brought this into especially sharp focus. Amla joined up with Barbados late off the back of some pretty dire form for South Africa and has seen an even sharper decline at the franchise. His average in the CPL this year is now a pathetic 8.5 - even more shockingly his August average is not much better at 19.5. One wonders if a spell in the nets would have improved Amla's game if not his bank account. Steve Smith, on the other hand, does not have the luxury to step away from the game for respite due to an enforced period of rest handed down by Cricket Australia. This week Smith picked up 123, which doesn't sound too bad until you learn that he played 4 games in that time. Off the back of his 63 and 2-19 against Jamaica many thought he could pick up a bit of touch and push on in this tournament. This thought has been very much put to bed by the three scores that preceded that game being 4, 0 and 9. Yesterday's score of 40 puts him back on our radar again but is likely to lead to disappointment if his recent sporadic performances are anything to go by. The only respite that the former Australian captain can gain is that he has overtaken David Warner in the overall table - the last time this was the case was back in March. 

Week

Jeetan Patel - 358
Jofra Archer- 332
Rashid Khan - 311
Steve Smith - 123
David Warner - 92
Sunil Narine- 13
Dean Elgar- 8
Hashim Amla - 5

Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Ravi Ashwin- dnp 
George Bailey - dnp 
Jos Buttler - dnp 
Quinton De Kock- dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Aaron Finch - dnp 
Simon Harmer - dnp 
Ravi Jadeja- dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp
Mitchell Marsh - dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 
Joe Root- dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 4699
Jeetan Patel - 4591
Rashid Khan - 4330
Jos Buttler - 3713
Jofra Archer - 3513
Aaron Finch - 3343
Virat Kohli- 3309
Sunil Narine- 3144
Kane Williamson - 3094
Joe Root - 3073
Shakib Al Hasan - 2582
Ravi Ashwin - 2385
JP Duminy - 2336
Quinton de Kock - 2020
Hashim Amla - 2013
AB De Villiers- 2010
Nathan Lyon - 1833
Dean Elgar- 1694
Shaun Marsh- 1498
Mitchell Marsh - 1425
Steve Smith - 1350
David Warner - 1349
Ravi Jadeja - 1226
George Bailey - 631