Cricket's Hot 24 - The Best Cricketers of the Year

For the last year we have been monitoring the top 24 Cricketers in the world; but who has finished top of the top?

10. Joe Root 

Total points: 4234

Gap from next position: 54

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 1

Highest Scoring Week: Week 29 - Right in the middle of the ODI series vs India and two centuries on the trot gave Root 424.

Summary: He will be disappointed in his overall performances for England this year despite the fact that the Test side is in a better condition than we have seen in many a moon. 

9. Kane Williamson

Total points: 4251

Gap from next position: 17

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 0

Highest Scoring Week: Week 31 - Two man of the match performances for Yorkshire in the T20 Blast yielded 298 points. 

Summary: 2018's forgotten man - barely any international cricket and no stand out performances in high profile competitions - Williamson has been quietly grinding away to get his 9th place finish. 

8. Sunil Narine

Total points: 4377

Gap from next position: 126

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 3

Highest Scoring Week: Week 5 - Narine peaked early by claiming 487 points thanks to 10 wickets in three games over the course of one week in the Regional Super 50 competition. 

Summary: You can criticise Narine all you like but to perform as well as he has all across the world needs a special amount of skill. 

7. Nathan Lyon 

Total points: 4507

Gap from next position: 130

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 6

Highest Scoring Week: Week 50 - Just a few weeks ago, Lyon bagged 8 wickets against the best players of spin in the world and gained 377 points 

Summary: The fact that Lyon has the second most Cricketer of the Week awards tells you all you need to know - when Lyon plays he plays phenomenally. 

6. Jofra Archer 

Total points: 4553

Gap from next position: 46

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 2

Highest Scoring Week: Week 29 - As Root (his future captain?) was schooling India, Archer was racking up 381 points for Sussex thanks to 8 wickets vs Gloucestershire. 

Summary: Every County Championship game was a corker for one of England's brightest young talents. 

5. Jos Buttler 

Total points: 4846

Gap from next position: 293

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 2

Highest Scoring Week: Week 19 - Buttler attempted to save his Rajasthan team with three consecutive scores over 50 plus in a week which helped him to 378 points. 

Summary: He will be very pleased with his 2018 - a year where his stock has risen in all forms of the game. 

4. Virat Kohli 

Total points: 4977

Gap from next position: 131

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 4

Highest Scoring Week: Week 43 - Two hundreds in a week against West Indies saw the Indian captain register a huge 417 points. 

Summary: He has had another impressive year...but one would have to wonder whether he would be pleased with finishing fourth. 

3. Jeetan Patel 

Total points: 5856

Gap from next position: 879

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 5

Highest Scoring Week: Week 26 - 496 points from back to back games against Kent and Durham saw the New Zealander shoot up the table. 

Summary: Jeets has had another great year at the top of his game on both sides of the world. 

2. Rashid Khan 

Total points: 6291

Gap from next position: 435

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 5

Highest Scoring Week: Week 38 - Rashid thrived in the Asia Cup and seven wickets in three games plus some handy batting garnered him 405 points. 

Summary: These are heady days for the Afghanistani spinner - having played all,over the world and continuing to impress internationally, the world is Rashid's oyster. 

1. Simon Harmer 

Total points: 8426

Gap from next position: 2135

Number of Cricketer of the Weeks awarded: 8

Highest Scoring Week: Week 26 - Back to back games against Nottinghamshire and Somerset saw 10 wickets and 581 points. 

Summary: He is an unlikely winner but he has indefatigably earned every single point; whether he is playing for Essex, Warriors or Jozi he performs at the very best of his ability. A truly astonishing year. 

Jos Buttler - The Best Cricketer of the Week.

There is a peculiar circularity to the fact that we end the year in the exact same position as we began it - awarding Jos Buttler as Cricketer of the Week for his performances in the BBL. In Week One he gained 192 points with 102 runs. In Week Fifty-Two he bagged 262 with 152 coming from the bat. It is fitting reward for the (now) English Test Cricketer and is indicative of his skill. For many cricketing aficionados he is the most technically accurate batsman in the world - this is borne out by the fact he is second only to Virat Kohli (the most prolific batsman in the world) in terms of out and out batsmen in our overall league. The fact that he is competing in the same BBL team as his England captain Joe Root forces you to compare the two against each other. Before being granted the England captaincy, many drooled over the batting prowess of the Yorkshire man. Many also feared that, after succeeding Alistair Cook, Joe Root's batting would wain. Lamentably this has been borne out with Root looking more than average this year and is a full 612 points behind Buttler. With lots of English action on the cards in 2019, I expect Buttler to go from strength to strength next year. 

I have coined the term 'doing a Jadeja' this year and, despite the fact he is not on our list of Cricketers for 2019, I think it might stick around. It happened again this week. After being injured/ignored/poorly managed (depending on what Indian media outlet you paid heed to) for the first two Tests against Australia, Jadeja came back roaring. Despite the fact that five wickets is something of a meagre haul - especially in comparison to his compatriot Jasprit Bumrah - it was maidens and his economy that helped him surge up the weekly table and claim second place. This sense of surging is a familiar experience for the Saurashtra man. At the start of April, Jadeja was rock bottom of the overall table and was only just lifted off that by George Bailey, Steve Smith and David Warner as the English Summer arrived. It is only in the latter third of the year that we have seen a beleaguered Ravi Jadeja lurch his way, unevenly, up the table until he has come to rest in his final position - a creditable mid-table. As I have suggested he is not being carried over to our list in 2019 but it will be fascinating to see whether his spell in the Indian team will continue or whether he will lose his appeal as flavour of the month. One thing we must bear in mind however is that after 40 Tests, Jadeja has the most wickets by a left arm bowler in the history of Test cricket. Not too shabby at all. 

Oh George. You are such a tease. As I suggested above, George Bailey has been rock bottom of our overall table since the beginning of May - however the plucky Aussie has reared his head up occasionally with a cheeky glimpse of his potential. No more so than in his final week on our list. He has evolved into some latter day Chris Gayle this week with two explosive performances for Hobart that stand out in stark contrast to some of his more mundane outings throughout the rest of the year. His 27* against Melbourne Stars came off 18 balls. This was then followed by an even more impressive 23 off 10 balls against Sydney Thunder. This sees him pick up an unprecedented 70 points off strike rate alone and finish a creditable seventh in our weekly list. If the year was only a few weeks longer Bailey might have even escaped from the wooden spoon position. He is now just 31 points off of his fellow Aussie, Steve Smith, however time has run out on the veteran and he languishes in very last place for 2018. It really was not a wonderful life for Bailey this year. 

Week

Jos Buttler - 262
Ravi Ashwin- 259
Rashid Khan - 156
Nathan Lyon - 127
Virat Kohli- 122
George Bailey - 121 
Jofra Archer- 120
Dean Elgar - 102
Hashim Amla- 91
Quinton De Kock- 85
Shaun Marsh- 73
Kane Williamson - 70
Mitchell Marsh- 69
Jeetan Patel - 37
Joe Root - 36
Aaron Finch- 31
Ravi Ashwin- dnp 
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy - dnp 
Simon Harmer - dnp
Sunil Narine- dnp 
Steve Smith- dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 8426
Rashid Khan - 6291
Jeetan Patel - 5856
Virat Kohli- 4977
Jos Buttler - 4846
Jofra Archer - 4553
Nathan Lyon - 4507
Sunil Narine- 4377
Kane Williamson - 4251
Joe Root - 4234
Aaron Finch - 4180
Ravi Ashwin - 3845
Shakib Al Hasan - 3804
Ravi Jadeja - 3562
Quinton de Kock - 3166
Mitchell Marsh - 2978
Dean Elgar- 2838
Shaun Marsh- 2599
AB De Villiers- 2542
JP Duminy - 2496
Hashim Amla - 2374
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1319

Shakib Al-Hasan - The Best Cricketer of the Week

The year has been bookended by outstanding performances from Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan but, in the words of Vanessa Williams, he went and saved the best for last. At the end of the month of January, Shakib had won Cricketer of the Week twice and was second in the overall placings. Since then injury and sporadic activity saw him only finish atop the overall league once more in August, however his performances in the T20 series against West Indies have been nothing short of phenomenal. The allrounder has proved himself just that with 103 runs and 8 wickets - including a T20 five-fer. He also marked the Week by becoming the third highest wicket taker in T20Is with 86. It speaks of the gulf between players just outside the top ten that, despite his haul of 403 points this week, he doesn't move a single place in the overall table. He is now 41 points off Ravi Ashwin in 12th place. With next week being a round up of the year and a breakdown of the top ten, it seems apposite to look at our mid table. This little patch of our overall table sees Ravis Ashwin and Jadeja as well as Shakib very much adrift of the top eleven but also fields ahead of Quinton De Kock in 15th. These three players are all in this cricketing limbo for a number of reasons. As has been very clear in these posts, Ravi Jadeja's season has oscillated between god awful and phenomenal, so I guess it seems fitting he languishes bang in the middle of the table. Ashwin is in the autumn of his cricketing years and is seemingly being protected in the mould of Jimmy Anderson so he has not played as many games as he once did. And then, to round it off, Shakib who has been injury plagued. All three of these players are capable of turning in great performances but not with the regularity to push on into the top ten.

You work hard for your team all season. You, almost single-handedly get them to the final. You know the fate of the team rests on your shoulders. So what do you do? You crap out for five and hand victory to the opposing team. Such was the fate of Quinton De Kock who ended his most consistently profligate period of time in 2018 with his lowest score of the year. Anti-climactic disappointments aside, De Kock has used the Mzansi Super League to boost his points hugely. The South African wicket-keeper-batsman added exactly 800 points to his overall tally during the tournament and now sees himself the leading active South African international on our overall list. Our South African contingent have disappointed this year; clustered, as they are, in the lower mid-section of the table and far far adrift of the top half. The fact that a player that was widely ignored throughout the year's marquee domestic T20 competition has managed to overhaul his more wellthought of colleagues is testament to the damp squib of a year for the Saffers. 

I have focused on the middle of the table and just outside the top ten. Before I move on to the only surviving battle within the top ten I suppose a cursory glance at the bottom of the table is needed. Languishing in last place is George Bailey. His sporadic scores of 50+ throughout the latter stages of the year have not managed to see him 'pull a Jadeja' and spurt up the table. He is still 62 points off Steve Smith in 23rd. In a death grip of futility Smith and Warner have stayed glued to one another since the fateful day in South Africa and sit in 22nd and 23rd. Whatever emerges about their future in 2019 should be fascinating, although they are very unlikely to be retained on our watch list. I mean, even the BPL considered Smith damaged property enough for Comilla to drop him. Then in 21st (notional bottom place) sits Hashim Amla. This week has been a better one for him as he coupled his now obligatory duck with 61 in his second innings for Cape Cobras against the Warriors. It has been an underwhelming year for the bearded one but we have walked this path before in previous posts. 

From about March, Kane Williamson has made tenth place his base camp from which he has not wandered too far from before scurrying back from either direction. This week he scored 121 thanks to a decent batting performance against Pakistan but this was not enough to stop the onwards charge of Nathan Lyon to knock him down into eleventh place in the eleventh hour. Williamson has been by far the most consistent player of the two throughout the year. As was mentioned last week, Lyon has spent long periods of time inactive; this has meant that between January and September, Williamson had the most points per month in all but two. This has all changed since October though, when Lyon has gone into hyperdrive. With monthly scores of 894 in October, 599 in November and 1054 so far in December, Lyon's unstoppable surge has seen him on an upward trajectory from 15th place in the first week of October to tenth today. With a week left in the year both players have Test matches on their schedule. Will Lyon's 191 point cushion be enough to lock Williamson out? 

Week

Shakib Al Hasan - 403
Nathan Lyon - 344
Jeetan Patel - 212
Simon Harmer - 197
Virat Kohli- 190
Dean Elgar - 122
Kane Williamson- 121
Rashid Khan - 110 
Aaron Finch - 105
Hashim Amla - 81
George Bailey - 62
Jofra Archer - 50
Jos Buttler - 50
Shaun Marsh - 50
Joe Root- 18
Quinton De Kock- 5
Mitchell Marsh - 3
Ravi Ashwin- dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Ravi Jadeja- dnp 
Sunil Narine- dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 8426
Rashid Khan - 6135
Jeetan Patel - 5819
Virat Kohli- 4855
Jos Buttler - 4584
Jofra Archer - 4433
Sunil Narine- 4377
Joe Root - 4198
Aaron Finch - 4149
Nathan Lyon - 4380
Kane Williamson - 4181
Ravi Ashwin - 3845
Shakib Al Hasan - 3804
Ravi Jadeja - 3303
Quinton de Kock - 3081
Mitchell Marsh - 2909
Dean Elgar- 2736
Shaun Marsh- 2599
AB De Villiers- 2542
JP Duminy - 2496
Hashim Amla - 2283
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1298

Nathan Lyon - The Best Cricketer of the Week

All through the year Nathan Lyon has proved himself as capable of producing incredibly destructive performances; his sixth Cricketer of the Week accolade is testament to this. These massive scores have been needed for a player who has been inactive for as long as he has throughout the year. The average number of inactive weeks in 2018 for the top ten players in our overall list is 18 - Jofra Archer has most with 23 and Rashid Khan has least with 12. Nathan Lyon, who sits just outside the top ten, has had 30! What sets Lyon apart from the rest is that when he does play he registers big! His average points scored per week is 202 which puts him second only to league leader Simon Harmer's 229. His eight wickets against India in the first test are even more highly prized due to the fact that they are against players who are supposedly the best players of spin in the world. The player termed the Greatest of All Time is making his claim to be one of the most under rated players on our overall list. 

However there is a caveat to all this. It is has been a bowlers week with the top four all being wicket takers. With 151 points separating Lyon from fifth place AB De Villiers and 69 from the South African batsman to fourth place, we can, yet again, see that bowlers have the edge in this game. Despite this, as George Orwell might have said, not all bowlers are created equal. So what has made the difference? Predictably it is maidens bowled. Between them the top three bowlers scored 205 points from maiden overs. Ravi Ashwin bagged the most with 110, then Jeetan Patel with 50 and Nathan Lyon trailing behind with 45. Compare this to Shakib Al Hasan in fourth who scored the grand total of 0 maidens in his three ODIs and you can see why the Bangladesh captain might have been trailing. In three posts time, maidens will not be worth the five points that they have this year so the frugal trio at the top of the tree need to enjoy these luxuries while they last. 

These last few weeks I have been commenting on the lack of success for Hashim Amla. This has continued this week as Dean Elgar (129), Shaun Marsh (82) and AB De Villiers (226) have all scored well to draw away from the languishing Proteas batsman but it is the figure that they have all overtaken that has caught my eye this week. Now sat in 20th place is JP Duminy. His fall from grace has been worthy of Satan himself. Whilst most other players have enjoyed some jostling up and down the table throughout the year, Duminy has proved the Henry Jekyll of our list in as much as his "movement was thus wholly towards the worse." Between Weeks 2 and 6 JP Duminy rode majestic over our league in top spot, before spending five weeks in second and a further two weeks in third. From there he has continued to decline, dropping out of the top ten in Week 21 and now inactive for the last nine weeks. With the exception of seventh and eleventh place, Duminy has now positioned in every ranking between 1st and 20th. With him now taking up a commentary role as part of the broadcast team for the Mzansi Super League, potentially 2019 will see him focus more on his career after cricket than on the pitch. 

Week

Nathan Lyon - 377
Ravi Ashwin - 360 
Jeetan Patel - 296
Shakib Al Hasan - 295
AB De Villiers- 226
Quinton De Kock-136
Dean Elgar - 129
Mitchell Marsh- 107
Shaun Marsh- 82
Rashid Khan - 81
Aaron Finch- 61
Virat Kohli- 47
Simon Harmer - 30
Hashim Amla - 26
Jofra Archer- dnp 
George Bailey - dnp 
Jos Buttler - dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Ravi Jadeja- dnp 
Sunil Narine- dnp 
Joe Root- dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 8229
Rashid Khan - 6025
Jeetan Patel - 5607
Virat Kohli- 4665
Jos Buttler - 4534
Jofra Archer - 4383
Sunil Narine- 4377
Joe Root - 4180
Kane Williamson - 4060
Aaron Finch - 4044
Nathan Lyon - 4036
Ravi Ashwin - 3845
Shakib Al Hasan - 3405
Ravi Jadeja - 3303
Quinton de Kock - 3076
Mitchell Marsh - 2906
Dean Elgar- 2614
Shaun Marsh- 2549
AB De Villiers- 2542
JP Duminy - 2496
Hashim Amla - 2202
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1236