Nathan Lyon - The Best Cricketer of the Week

When looking back over the last week's cricketing action it has made very clear the schizophrenic nature of our great game. Oftentimes the casual observer of our beloved game finds the different variants of the sport a mystery and does not understand the distinctions needed of both the observer and the participant. From those in the inner circle it is all too common for them to look down on certain forms of the game and heap praise on the others. This week there have been three very different type of contests being played out across the world that typify this problem. Further more the leading point scorer in each one of these disciplines further typifies the different styles of players we see in the modern game.

A quarter of our players were playing in good old fashioned long form cricket - four in the Sheffield Shield and a further two in Tests, that grandest of cricketing traditions. Cricketing purists who put this form of cricket on a pedestal will also be overjoyed to hear that five of the top six performers this week were participating in these games. Our top point scorer for the week was Nathan Lyon. A player fully dedicated to his nation's plight. A player who drops out of T20 tournaments in order to ensure his fitness for his national team. This is a level of elite honesty that Australian can only dream of in the post-Sandpapergate era. This week he churned out a nine wicket haul for New South Wales against Queensland. Lyon is a pin up boy for the long form cricket purist. A former groundsman who tenaciously plugged away at his game until he has become (statistically speaking) the best spinner Australia have ever seen. He ticks all the boxes that a Test cricket fan likes. Tenacity. An appealing backstory. A streak of classically Australian pugnacity. He has it all. He has now got the Australians to have a run against and, on current form, might be able to do a lot of damage. He is joined at the top of the table by the equally tenacious Shaun Marsh, whose late November spurt continues, and the indefatigable Shakib Al Hasan. 

This month has seen the launch of the Mzansi Super League and in an era where not all T20 franchise tournaments are created equal - this one has something close to a heart attached to it. The games have been of the highest quality and an almost perfect mix of domestic South African domestic players, South African international stars and international players have turned out so that all are levels of interest are catered for. The only South African player that is not participating is the injured JP Duminy and it is Mr Consistency himself, Quinton De Kock, that is the MSL's top point scorer this week. A good T20 league should raise the profile of one of that country's best players. We have seen it with Jasprit Bumrah in the IPL and with Pat Brown in the T20 Blast. QDK is clearly more renowned than that but in a year where he would rightfully feel rather overshadowed he is using this fledgling tournament to get back to his best. His 74 from 36 balls in yesterday's game against Jozi was a batting tour de force and his Cape Town team are very much in the driving seat with a 100% win ratio. His 170 points this week sees him overtake JP Duminy and become the highest ranked South African on our overall list. 

Anybody that has been keeping an eye on the T10 league can't help but enjoy it....but we need to question it's validity. A tournament where a 47 year old gets 4 wickets in 5 deliveries has question marks seeping out of every crack in the pitch. I have tried to write this section without showing any bias but it really is a struggle. Thee of our players are featuring in this money fuelled jaunt: Jofra Archer Rashid Khan and Sunil Narine. Archer and Khan are young. They need money. We can forgive them but there is something irritatingly inevitable about Narine's involvement. He is inevitably present. He is inevitably performing the best out of the trio. He is inevitably getting paid through the nose. Those last two points are inevitably linked. The spinner, who has turned his back on the West Indies set up long before his thirtieth birthday, is the most mercenary of all the mercenary Cricketers. This being said he has not done badly for himself this year. He represents one of the four players in our overall top ten who do not represent their national team but is the only one who has not bolstered their points with an extended spell in the County Championship. The player, if selected, may continue this into 2019. He confirmed his involvement in the PSL this week and will, again inevitably, turn up to the IPL and put himself in the shop window yet again for another year of globe-trotting and money grabbing.

Week

Nathan Lyon - 350
Shaun Marsh- 254
Shakib Al Hasan - 230
Quinton De Kock- 170
Mitchell Marsh- 170
Kane Williamson - 140
Simon Harmer -114
Sunil Narine - 105
Jofra Archer - 90
AB De Villiers- 82
Hashim Amla - 71
Aaron Finch - 57
Rashid Khan - 31 
George Bailey - 28
Dean Elgar- 9 
Virat Kohli - 4
Ravi Ashwin- dnp 
Jos Buttler - dnp 
JP Duminy - dnp 
Ravi Jadeja - dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 
Joe Root - dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 6944
Rashid Khan - 5586
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Jos Buttler - 4424
Virat Kohli- 4373
Jofra Archer - 4303
Joe Root - 4127
Sunil Narine- 4043
Aaron Finch - 3864
Kane Williamson - 3684
Ravi Ashwin - 3370
Nathan Lyon - 3326
Ravi Jadeja - 3263
Shakib Al Hasan - 3106
Mitchell Marsh - 2663
Quinton de Kock - 2519
JP Duminy - 2496
Shaun Marsh- 2356
Dean Elgar- 2293
AB De Villiers- 2191
Hashim Amla - 2162
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1115

Ravi Jadeja - The Best Cricketer of the Week

In current form Ravi Jadeja could do anything. He could captain the Irish women's team to World Cup triumph. He could successfully negotiate a peaceful and sensible Brexit. He could even sort out the ECB. Everything that Ravi Jadeja has touched since September has turned into Bitcoin. This week he has scored the second highest total from a single week after Jeetan Patel's 496 in Week 26. After starting the year as something of a persona non grata at Saurashtra, his uptick in form that started for India against England has seen him glide back into his domestic side. This week he registered in all point scoring categories with the exception of Strike Rate as he claimed man of the match against Railways. It is well known that Jadeja can turn his hand to batting when the mood takes him, and it seems the mood took him this week as he scored 226 across both innings, finishing unbeaten both times. It is easy to forget that for two thirds of the year Jadeja sat at the bottom of the table of active players (discounting George Bailey, Steve Smith and David Warner). In fact this week he scored more points than he did in the first sixteen weeks of the year. He is now in twelfth position and is a couple of good performances from forcing the issue in the top ten. 

To say that AB De Villiers came back with a bang is something of an understatement. Fans of the talismanic South African have not seen him in action since his shock(ish) international retirement and subsequent step away from the game sixteen weeks ago. As ABDV approaches the late Kevin Pietersen mould of mercenary cricketing, he could very well have lost form and struggled but the Pretorian stepped up to the plate in the inaugural game of his home country's new T20 tournament and registered a half century straight off the bat. Whilst his Tshwane team could not overhaul Cape Town, his symbolic presence at the event did more for the competition than otherwise. Due to his inactivity he sits in that cluster of amorphous South African and Australian players at the foot of the table which is probably where he will stay. It is unlikely he will be selected for our list in 2019 and this makes a rather dispiriting end for one of the finest proponents of the short form game and one of the best players of his generation. 

Jos Buttler is known for his T20 prowess. Less so Joe Root (just ask the IPL teams). This week both Englishmen showed their ability to up the strike rate - but more unusually, they did so in a Test. Jos went first with 63 from 67 in the first innings and then, surprisingly, more impressively the skipper followed suit in the second innings with 124 runs off 146 balls. This strike rate and run scoring double whammy saw Joe Root score his fourth highest weekly score of 2018 and overtake Sunil Narine to put him just behind Virat Kohli (again) whilst Jos overtook Kohli to seize fourth place once more. To have two England Test players in the six best players in the world is something that we would have thought impossible at the start of the year, especially with Buttler seemingly discarded from the set up. I think we have ended the year with the England Test team in a much stronger place than it started it...next The Ashes. 

The (entirely fabricated by me) battle between Quinton De Kock and Dean Elgar rages on. This week's update is much the same as last week's. Both players did well but Quinton did better. Elgar got 52 points from a purely batting display in the same inaugural Mzansi Super League match that De Villiers featured in, but Mr Consistency, Quinton De Kock, got 16 more runs (admittedly across double the amount of games) in the matches in Australia. They still sit in 17th and 18th in the battle of slightly above average South Africans.

Week

Ravi Jadeja- 546
Joe Root- 238
Jos Buttler - 127
AB De Villiers- 99
Quinton De Kock - 68
Dean Elgar- 52
Aaron Finch- 27
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Hashim Amla- dnp 
Jofra Archer- dnp 
Ravi Ashwin - dnp 
George Bailey - dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Simon Harmer - dnp 
Rashid Khan - dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh- dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 
Sunil Narine - dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 6830
Rashid Khan - 5555
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Jos Buttler - 4424
Virat Kohli- 4369
Joe Root - 4127
Sunil Narine- 3938
Aaron Finch - 3807
Jofra Archer - 3578
Kane Williamson - 3544
Ravi Ashwin - 3370
Ravi Jadeja - 3263
Nathan Lyon - 2976
Shakib Al Hasan - 2886
JP Duminy - 2496
Mitchell Marsh - 2493
Quinton de Kock - 2349
Dean Elgar- 2284
AB De Villiers- 2109
Shaun Marsh- 2102
Hashim Amla - 2091
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1087In current form Ravi Jadeja could do anything. He could captain the Irish women's team to World Cup triumph. He could successfully negotiate a peaceful and sensible Brexit. He could even sort out the ECB. Everything that Ravi Jadeja has touched since September has turned into Bitcoin. This week he has scored the second highest total from a single week after Jeetan Patel's 496 in Week 26. After starting the year as something of a persona non grata at Saurashtra, his uptick in form that started for India against England has seen him glide back into his domestic side. This week he registered in all point scoring categories with the exception of Strike Rate as he claimed man of the match against Railways. It is well known that Jadeja can turn his hand to batting when the mood takes him, and it seems the mood took him this week as he scored 226 across both innings, finishing unbeaten both times. It is easy to forget that for two thirds of the year Jadeja sat at the bottom of the table of active players (discounting George Bailey, Steve Smith and David Warner). In fact this week he scored more points than he did in the first sixteen weeks of the year. He is now in twelfth position and is a couple of good performances from forcing the issue in the top ten. 

To say that AB De Villiers came back with a bang is something of an understatement. Fans of the talismanic South African have not seen him in action since his shock(ish) international retirement and subsequent step away from the game sixteen weeks ago. As ABDV approaches the late Kevin Pietersen mould of mercenary cricketing, he could very well have lost form and struggled but the Pretorian stepped up to the plate in the inaugural game of his home country's new T20 tournament and registered a half century straight off the bat. Whilst his Tshwane team could not overhaul Cape Town, his symbolic presence at the event did more for the competition than otherwise. Due to his inactivity he sits in that cluster of amorphous South African and Australian players at the foot of the table which is probably where he will stay. It is unlikely he will be selected for our list in 2019 and this makes a rather dispiriting end for one of the finest proponents of the short form game and one of the best players of his generation. 

Jos Buttler is known for his T20 prowess. Less so Joe Root (just ask the IPL teams). This week both Englishmen showed their ability to up the strike rate - but more unusually, they did so in a Test. Jos went first with 63 from 67 in the first innings and then, surprisingly, more impressively the skipper followed suit in the second innings with 124 runs off 146 balls. This strike rate and run scoring double whammy saw Joe Root score his fourth highest weekly score of 2018 and overtake Sunil Narine to put him just behind Virat Kohli (again) whilst Jos overtook Kohli to seize fourth place once more. To have two England Test players in the six best players in the world is something that we would have thought impossible at the start of the year, especially with Buttler seemingly discarded from the set up. I think we have ended the year with the England Test team in a much stronger place than it started it...next The Ashes. 

The (entirely fabricated by me) battle between Quinton De Kock and Dean Elgar rages on. This week's update is much the same as last week's. Both players did well but Quinton did better. Elgar got 52 points from a purely batting display in the same inaugural Mzansi Super League match that De Villiers featured in, but Mr Consistency, Quinton De Kock, got 16 more runs (admittedly across double the amount of games) in the matches in Australia. They still sit in 17th and 18th in the battle of slightly above average South Africans.

Week

Ravi Jadeja- 546
Joe Root- 238
Jos Buttler - 127
AB De Villiers- 99
Quinton De Kock - 68
Dean Elgar- 52
Aaron Finch- 27
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Hashim Amla- dnp 
Jofra Archer- dnp 
Ravi Ashwin - dnp 
George Bailey - dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Simon Harmer - dnp 
Rashid Khan - dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh- dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 
Sunil Narine - dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 6830
Rashid Khan - 5555
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Jos Buttler - 4424
Virat Kohli- 4369
Joe Root - 4127
Sunil Narine- 3938
Aaron Finch - 3807
Jofra Archer - 3578
Kane Williamson - 3544
Ravi Ashwin - 3370
Ravi Jadeja - 3263
Nathan Lyon - 2976
Shakib Al Hasan - 2886
JP Duminy - 2496
Mitchell Marsh - 2493
Quinton de Kock - 2349
Dean Elgar- 2284
AB De Villiers- 2109
Shaun Marsh- 2102
Hashim Amla - 2091
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1087

Mitchell Marsh - The Best Cricketer of the Week

If you have a plan that works then you should stick to it. The Marsh brothers have a plan that works and they've stuck to it. The plan takes place in a mere three weeks. Firstly you disappoint for your national team to the point where people question your position. You then return to your domestic club and play an absolute blinder, winning the Cricketer of the Week in the process. Lastly you return to the national team triumphant and lead them to glory. The elder Marsh brother completed the three step Marsh plan this morning, whilst his younger brother is lagging behind on Stage 2. After a torrid time in the UAE, Mitchell returned to Western Australia and was instrumental in his team racking up 540 on a Brisbane pitch that seemed tailor made for runs. It remains to be seen whether Stage Three will come quite as quickly for Mitchell as it did for Shaun, who top scored with 106 runs in this morning's ODI with South Africa. Instead he may have to resign himself to racking up points with carefree abandon in the Sheffield Shield until the India series. Overall he has jumped Dean Elgar to move into 16th place - more domestic triumph could see him overhaul the injured JP Duminy. 

Another week of dominance for Simon Harmer and the resurgence of Nathan Lyon has yet again proved how a high economy is key to scoring big week in and week out. The South African spinner got 14 maidens in his game for the Warriors vs the Knights, whilst his Australian counterpart got 13 for New South Wales versus Tasmania. This has seen the pair finish second and third in the weekly table and has also seen Harmer extend his lead over Rashid Khan to 1275 with eight weeks left in the year. It may be the time to call Simon Harmer as the undefeated champion of cricket in 2019. As I said two weeks ago, the double award of points for maidens and economies will come to an end when the list is deselected for 2019. In the new formula for 2019, Harmer would have been awarded 173 points and finished two places lower with Lyon getting 180 and leapfrogging him into third. However this is a conversation for next year, this year we need to revel in the bowling heroics of Simon Ross Harmer. 

These posts are not a place for self-aggrandisement but.....I was right. I was bloody right. Last week I christened Dean Elgar as Mr Inconsistent whilst dubbing his national colleague Quinton de Kock as his antithesis. What happened this week? He followed his 128 runs for the Titans against the Lions with a duck in the fixture against the Dolphins. This saw the batsman pick up just ten points for a catch. Subsequently we have seen him go from his third highest score of 2018 last week to his second lowest this. This has seen him lose two places in the overall table as Mitchell Marsh and...well would you believe it...Quinton De Kock overtake him. Elgar is now 18th in the overall league. But this is not the only prophesying that I did last week. I pointed out that George Bailey was the antithesis to Shaun Marsh in as much as he performed well in a quasi national team but flops domestically. Bailey then returns to his domestic side and scores the heady total of 7 runs across his two innings. In an Elgar-like move this saw him score 10% of his total last time out to scoring his lowest ever total this week. After a year of wayward predictions I seem to have saved up all my accuracy for one week. 

Week

Mitchell Marsh- 276 
Simon Harmer - 243
Nathan Lyon - 225
Shaun Marsh - 198
Jos Buttler - 103 
Quinton De Kock - 73
Aaron Finch- 62
Joe Root - 48
Kane Williamson - 38
Dean Elgar - 10
George Bailey - 7
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Hashim Amla- dnp 
Jofra Archer- dnp 
Ravi Ashwin- dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Ravi Jadeja- dnp 
Rashid Khan - dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Sunil Narine- dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 
Steve Smith- dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 6830
Rashid Khan - 5555
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Virat Kohli- 4369
Jos Buttler - 4297
Sunil Narine- 3938
Joe Root - 3889
Aaron Finch - 3780
Jofra Archer - 3578
Kane Williamson - 3544
Ravi Ashwin - 3370
Nathan Lyon - 2976
Shakib Al Hasan - 2886
Ravi Jadeja - 2717
JP Duminy - 2496
Mitchell Marsh - 2493
Quinton de Kock - 2281
Dean Elgar- 2232
Shaun Marsh- 2102
Hashim Amla - 2091
AB De Villiers- 2010
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1087