Quinton De Kock - The Best Cricketer of the Week

It is in the Mzansi Super League's favour that their summer tournament has very little competition due to the dormancy of most elite players at this time. In a week where 71% off our players were inactive, five of the seven players that registered points this week did so in the MSL. Very top of this tree is the inimitable Quinton De Kock who is finishing the year in impeccable form for Cape Town. His 360 point score seems very apposite for a wicket-keeper batsman who has been giving 360 degree virtuoso performances in his country's inaugural T20 tournament. There have been very few players in our list who have picked up 210 runs in a week purely relying on T20 games but 93 against Paarl and 108 versus Tshwane has seen De Kock put a distinctly average year behind him to claim Cricketer of the Week for the first time in 2018. He has also been flawless with the globes and is inarguably the star player of this tournament. I have mentioned a few times on these posts how QDK is oft overlooked - not least by his IPL franchise Bangalore, however it was announced this week that he has now been acquired by Mumbai. On this current form that could be a master stroke by the three time winners and could see 2019 be a very fruitful year for the South African. His performance this week has seen him overtake Mitchell Marsh and he is primed, suitably, to finish comfortably mid table. 

Never has a Test team been so overlooked than New Zealand have this year. Their hand full of Tests bookending the year have not done their team of talented players justice. Spearheading this list is, as ever, Kane Williamson. Undoubtably one of the finest batsmen of this generation, he has had to settle for IPL showings and County Championship run outs to satiate his burning desire for runs. This week he reminded the world of his Test batting calibre with a spectacular performance in both innings in the final Test against Pakistan. His 288 points sees him finish second for the week. In a year where Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel have finished top of our weekly list a combined 13 times it must be fairly galling that the New Zealand captain has failed to do so even once - but that tells the story of the New Zealand cricketing calendar more than his performances finishing, as he will, in the top ten of our overall table. 2019 looks a more fruitful year for the Kiwis as Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh all visit their shores in the early part of the year as well as the World Cup in England but for Williamson 2018 must seem something of a damp squib. 

As performances this week have been so thin in the ground I just would like to draw your attention to two oddities that feature two of our players. Hashim Amla, who was a main feature in my post last week, was dropped by Durban for his weak performances. Last week I mentioned that he would have to put a real shift in to avoid finishing rock bottom of players that didn't have a more valid excuse...this decision looks like it has been rather taken off his hands. Another player whose 2018 has seen him evolve is Sunil Narine and his final game of the T10 league was indicative of this. The one-time bowler has been on the journey to being an impactful opening batsman during 2018 and this was underlined by the fact that he did not bowl a single ball for Bengal in their third place play off with Maratha and was instead used solely as a batsman. Is this now Narine's natural form? If selected for the 2019 list (which is quite a large if) we will see.

Week

Quinton De Kock- 360
Kane Williamson- 288
Simon Harmer - 145
Rashid Khan - 130
Dean Elgar- 63
AB De Villiers- 55
Sunil Narine- 15
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Hashim Amla - dnp 
Jofra Archer- dnp 
Ravi Ashwi - dnp
George Bailey - dnp 
Jos Buttler - dnp 
JP Duminy - dnp 
Aaron Finch- dnp 
Ravi Jadeja - dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh- dnp 
Shaun Marsh- dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Joe Root- dnp
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 7199
Rashid Khan - 5944
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Virat Kohli- 4618
Jos Buttler - 4534
Jofra Archer - 4383
Sunil Narine- 4377
Joe Root - 4180
Kane Williamson - 4060
Aaron Finch - 3983
Nathan Lyon - 3659
Ravi Ashwin - 3485
Ravi Jadeja - 3303
Shakib Al Hasan - 3106
Quinton de Kock - 2940
Mitchell Marsh - 2799
JP Duminy - 2496
Dean Elgar- 2485
Shaun Marsh- 2467
AB De Villiers- 2316
Hashim Amla - 2176
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1236