Shakib Al Hasan - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Do you think it's possible to celebrate your individual success at the end of a week where your team has performed poorly? This is the quandary faced by Cricketer of the Week Shakib Al Hasan. Personally the player has picked up 314 points which sees him to the top of the table this week and also helps him overtake Simon Harmer into top spot for the year. From a team perspective, his Dhaka franchise have lost back to back for the first time in this year's competition, ruining their run of just a single loss in 7 games. The talented allrounder loves a spell of success at the start of the year. His Cricketer of the Week accolade in Week 4 of this year's completion mirrors where he won the corresponding week in 2018. The key to his success is the sheer amount of games he has played so early in the year, but with an earlier IPL and then the World Cup he could keep this pressure up. His seven wickets this week also helped him to be the first player in the BPL to claim 100 wickets - a continuation of players on our list performing disproportionately better in their home T20 tournament than elsewhere. 

I'll hold my hands up and say that calling Kuldeep Yadav inconsistent last week was a mistake. Instead I would now like to say he is consistently inconsistent. The last three weeks has seen him go from top spot, to failing to register a point and being dropped from the team and then last week to finishing in third place and reclaiming a place in the top five overall. To add to this consistency dilemma, his two performances against New Zealand have both been consistently similar. He bowled ten overs in both games, he claimed four wickets in both games, he leaked only six runs more in the second game than he did the first. Spinners need to find themselves a bit of rhythm in order to regularly get good figures and Yadav is being allowed to find that rhythm in New Zealand. He is amazingly precocious for a 24 year old . We heap plaudits on Virat Kohli for the young age at which he breaks records, but today Yadav drew equal with Anil Kumble's record for four or more wickets in ODI internationals outside Asia - and he did it in 76 fewer games. No mean feat in an era purported to be batter friendly. He really is one to watch. 

People have been pouring praise on Callum Ferguson's sumptuous 113 off 53 balls for the Sydney Thunder against Perth this week...and if we awarded points for tenacity, grit, style and flair, Ferguson would be streets ahead of Shakib. It up there with Marlon Samuels' display in 2012 and Mike Hussey's 60 off 24 as one of the finest T20 batting displays I have ever seen. The closest we do get to awarding players for their showmanship is the points allocated for Strike Rate - it is a rare treat to award 40 points but Ferguson feels like he deserves even more for his strike rate of 213. This is no flash in the pan for the Sydney captain, as he also bagged a half century off 36 balls in the previous game against the Melbourne Renegades. It seems like he has felt he can really let loose now that Jos Buttler has left for international duties. It seems fitting that Ferguson is our biggest mover on the overall table this week - leaping from 16th place last week to seventh. With another five games for the Sydney Thunder in this seemingly unending BBL, we may see Ferguson really rack up some points in this form. 

Week

Shakib Al Hasan - 314
Callum Ferguson - 275
Kuldeep Yadav- 260
Shreyas Iyer - 180
Rohit Sharma - 137
Kane Williamson - 134
Virat Kohli - 98 
Duanne Olivier - 70
Joe Burns - 45
Rashid Khan - 25
Glenn Maxwell - 20

Mohammad Abbas - dnp 
Jonny Bairstow- dnp 
Jos Buttler - dnp 
Shubman Gill - dnp 
Simon Harmer - dnp 
Jack Leach- dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 
Joe Root- dnp 
Ben Stokes - dnp 

Shai Hope - ytp 
Morne Morkel - ytp 
Abdur Razzak- ytp 
Wayne Parnell - ytp 

Overall 

Shakib Al Hasan - 779
Simon Harmer - 500
Duanne Olivier - 491
Kuldeep Yadav - 483
Rohit Sharma - 402
Glenn Maxwell - 396
Callum Ferguson - 381
Kane Williamson - 366
Virat Kohli- 334
Joe Root- 288
Rashid Khan - 287
Mohammad Abbas - 260
Shreyas Iyer - 180
Ben Stokes - 166
Jonny Bairstow - 142
Joe Burns - 137
Jos Buttler - 131
Shubman Gill - 129
Jeetan Patel - 91
Jack Leach - 65
Shai Hope - ytp 
Morne Morkel - ytp 
Wayne Parnell - ytp 
Abdur Razzak- ytp 

Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

I am an unashamed fan of Simon Harmer. For a man to perform so consistently week in week out, in whatever competition he participates in is something worthy of credit. He has had another stellar week with 9 wickets in his game against Cape Cobras. He has coupled this with thirty points for runs scored and ten points for his strike rate - something that has been happening ever more regularly for the South African. Another string to his already fairly string heavy bow. His 290 this week is enough to see him take first place for the week and return to his place at the top of the tree in the overall league. This is something that we became familiar with in 2018 - with Harmer leading the pack for the last third of the year - but could this be a sign that Harmer may potentially outstrip last year's success? This time last year, Harmer had 351 points - this year he has 130 more than that. Furthermore it wasn't until the English Summer and his exploits in the County Championship that we saw him reach the pinnacle of the overall table. But yet here he is in top spot in just Week three. Could Harmer's 2019 total outstrip his 8426 points of last year? 

I'm not the first to say that Joe Root always performs better in Tour matches than he does in the Test matches but that has been brought into sharp focus with his point scoring this week. 237 points from the warm up game against the West Indies President's XI is a good yield - especially when you take into consideration that, unlike his other England team mates on the list, he only played in one of the two fixtures. Another eyebrow raising figure is the three wickets that he took to claim him 60 points from just his bowling. This is a pattern we saw last year and is a situation that Joe Root exploits much more than any other player on our list. If we compare the feast that Root indulged in against the West Indies' side and compare it to the rest of the England players we see that he did disproportionately better than Ben Stokes and leagues better than Jack Leach and Jos Buttler - all three of whom played both matches. So what does this say about Root? That he doesn't drop his focus regardless of the opposition? That he cares more about these tour matches? That he feels he will be unduly criticised if he were to not succeed? One thing that is clear is the stark difference between this week's bumper yield of points and the meagre pickings he has had in the BBL. He has scored double the amount of points this week than he has in the whole of his time with the Sydney Thunder. I think the bell has tolled on Joe Root's T20 aspirations. Time to move on to bigger and longer things. 

I think it must be pretty hard being a professional sportsman. One week you can be riding high whilst the next you are in the doldrums. Kuldeep Yadav is a case in point of this. Last week's top scorer with 223 points sees himself register 0 this week. This is zero points for a game that he played in and bowled 10 overs. After this performance he was then dropped for the third ODI. This really is a confusing period of time for the young Indian spinner. This confusion only becomes slightly more mystifying when you see that Kuldeep plays proportionately better when India are on the back foot. His table topping Week came from a drawn Test and a lost ODI, whilst this week's pointless yield saw two Indian victories and a series claimed by his nation. On his day Kuldeep can be destructive but, as is the case with the second ODI, he can also come across as relatively ineffectual. It goes without saying that this poor week has changed his overall position, dropping from second place to just outside the top ten. It is still early days and hard to tell which of these two points he will come to rest at. 

Week

Simon Harmer - 290
Shakib Al Hasan - 257
Duanne Olivier - 251
Mohammad Abbas - 250
Joe Root - 237
Virat Kohli- 210
Glenn Maxwell - 181
Ben Stokes - 166
Jonny Bairstow - 142
Rohit Sharma - 72
Jack Leach - 65
Rashid Khan - 58
Joe Burns - 56
Callum Ferguson - 28
Jos Buttler - 13
Jeetan Patel - 1
Kuldeep Yadav - 0

Shubman Gill - dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 

Shai Hope - ytp 
Shreyas Iyer - ytp 
Morne Morkel - ytp 
Wayne Parnell - ytp 
Abdur Razzak - ytp 

Overall 

Simon Harmer - 480
Shakib Al Hasan - 465
Duanne Olivier - 421
Glenn Maxwell - 376
Mohammad Abbas - 360
Joe Root- 288
Rohit Sharma - 265
Rashid Khan - 262
Virat Kohli- 236
Kane Williamson - 232
Kuldeep Yadav - 223
Ben Stokes - 166
Jonny Bairstow - 142
Jos Buttler - 131
Shubman Gill - 129
Callum Ferguson - 106
Joe Burns - 92
Jeetan Patel - 91
Jack Leach - 65

Shai Hope - ytp 
Shreyas Iyer - ytp 
Morne Morkel - ytp 
Wayne Parnell - ytp 
Abdur Razzak- ytp 

Kuldeep Yadav - the Best Cricketer of the Week

If this week is anything to go by, India are going to be very dominant on this list in 2019...and may very well be very dominant in general in this World Cup year. The upward thrust of Indian players has been characterised by Kuldeep Yadav who had yet to register any points last week and now finds himself best Cricketer of the Week and second in the overall table for 2019. What is even more impressive is the fact that he has put in equally as impressive displays in both Test and ODI cricket in the last week; 5 wickets coming from the longest format and a further two from this morning's loss to Australia. His resurgence puts him in the mix of emerging bowlers, alongside Mohammad Abbas and Duanne Olivier, who could really push on and prove themselves in 2019. Whilst he is not mentioned as much as his Pakistani and South African compatriots, I consider him to be one of the biggest emerging talents in all formats of the game. Kuldeep is joined by Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill as Indian players who have surged up the table this week. The batting exploits of these two players (133 from Rohit and 99 from Gill) sees the pair enter a top ten dominated by Indian talent. 

Throughout 2018 Simon Harmer and Rashid Khan were jostling for position at the top of the overall table. They have both taken different routes into 2019. Despite troubling personal circumstances Rashid has featured three times for Adelaide and registered 204 points, placing him fourth overall at this early point. Simon Harmer is playing in the slightly less glamorous South African 4-Day Franchise Series and has only got one fixture under his belt. His 170 is good enough for the third highest score of the week but he is in joint seventh overall. This is the nature of their two respective cricketing beasts. Rashid favours T20 cricket so will move more smoothly up the table whilst Harmer's movement will be more jagged and sporadic. I expect both to be in the mix by the end of the year. Jeetan Patel seems to have started slowly as well. Currently sitting in third last position of any player to have registered points in 2019, he is actually in a better position than he was last year. At this point in 2018, he had a mere 58 points compared to his 90 this time out. Could his better start to the year see him finish higher than his third position from last year? 

For many the Big Bash League bubble has burst in 2019. With an increase in fixtures, many say that their has been a decline in quality of performance and a general depreciation of the league. This has certainly been borne out by some very flaccid performances from the contributors on our list that have been playing in the tournament this week. The most shocking example of this is Jos Buttler, who finished his spell with Sydney Thunder with a score of just 5. Taking his BBL average from 44.66 to 39 and ruining his spell of scores of over 20. A similar pattern has been seen by Buttler's teammate Callum Ferguson, whose two +40 scores have been followed up by scores of 0 and 16. Two such players that didn't have this problem is Joe Root and Joe Burns whose performances throughout the whole of the BBL have been absolutely dire. Root was hoping to put himself in the T20 franchise window with this tournament but may just have put the nail in the coffin of that particular venture. He ended the tournament with a game that scored him the grand total of zero points despite having batted and fielded. Burns' form in the Sheffield Shield has been rewarded with a call up to the Australian Test team this week but his parade of single figure scores in the BBL sees him the lowest scoring player in the overall league to have played in both weeks. All four of these players are moving onto different forms of cricket in the next few weeks and will be hoping that the change will also change their fortunes. 

Week

Kuldeep Yadav - 223
Rohit Sharma - 193
Simon Harmer - 170
Shakib Al Hasan - 166
Shubman Gill - 129
Kane Williamson - 115
Rashid Khan - 93
Jeetan Patel - 40
Glenn Maxwell - 31
Virat Kohli - 26
Callum Ferguson - 16
Jos Buttler - 5
Joe Burns - 2 
Joe Root- 0

Mohammad Abbas - dnp 
Duanne Olivier - dnp 

Jonny Bairstow - ytp 
Shai Hope - ytp 
Shreyas Iyer - ytp 
Jack Leach - ytp 
Marne Morkel - ytp 
Wayne Parnell - ytp 
Abdur Razzak - ytp 
Ben Stokes - ytp 


Overall 

Kane Williamson - 232
Kuldeep Yadav - 223
Shakib Al Hasan - 208
Rashid Khan - 204
Glenn Maxwell - 195
Rohit Sharma - 193
Simon Harmer - 170
Duanne Olivier - 170
Shubman Gill - 129
Jos Buttler - 118
Mohammad Abbas - 110
Callum Ferguson - 78
Joe Root- 51
Jeetan Patel - 90
Joe Burns - 36
Virat Kohli- 26

Jonny Bairstow - ytp 
Shai Hope - ytp 
Shreyas Iyer - ytp 
Jack Leach - ytp 
Morne Morkel - ytp 
Wayne Parnell - ytp 
Abdur Razzak- ytp 
Ben Stokes - ytp 

Duanne Olivier - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Time passes and new Cricketers enter into our cricketing consciousness. The newest kid on the block is Duanne Olivier whose debut week in our list of 24 sees him finish in top position. After seven Tests for South Africa the bowler has picked up 33 wickets at an average of 18.81 and is indisputably one of the top talents to have emerged from 2018. Five of those 33 wickets came from the New Years Test against Pakistan where he was particularly effective at removing the middle order in the first innings. Many people are tipping Olivier for the top and, so far in 2019, he has already reached that peak. Another Test bowler that registered over 100 points this week was on the other end of Olivier's South Africa. Mohammad Abbas is another name in the frame as a potential number one Test bowler in the coming year. He got three fewer wickets than his South African counterpart but bowled with a far more stringent economy throughout the Test. Many in the Pakistan camp worry about his wicket tally but he finishes week one 60 points behind Olivier and it will be interesting to see the battle between the two as the year unfolds. 

While exploits in Test cricket receive higher plaudits, this list does not discriminate against our brothers from T20 franchises. Glenn Maxwell debuts in second position for his 74 runs from two games in the BBL. Maxwell has two different modes of batting to contribute to his points tally this year. This week we saw his destructive all encompassing batting at its most forceful. The Aussie picked up 50 strike rate points for his two games and this is an area he will exploit for all the T20 franchises that he represents throughout 2019. The other side of the coin is his solid performances in the longer forms of the game. Half centuries come regularly for Victoria in the Sheffield Shield and I see that being no different for Lancashire when he joins them in the English summer. Whilst second place might be a very lofty entry point, I do expect Ferguson to be in and around the lower section of the top ten fairly consistently throughout the year. His chance to get any higher than that really does depend on whether he is deemed surplus to requirements for the Australia ODI side in this World Cup year. 

Although they all got points in the three figures, the retained trio of Rashid Khan, Jos Buttler and Kane Williamson must be eyeing the competition around them with scepticism. Rashid Khan, last year's second place finisher, ends a difficult week for himself personally with 111 points and fifth position. A lot has been made of Rashid's potential as an allrounder and this is something he displayed this week with maximum strike rate points from his 21 off 7 balls for Adelaide against Melbourne Renegades. One island along, Williamson will be pleased with his start to 2019. After spending a majority of 2018 languishing around tenth place, starting the season in third spot as the highest scoring retained player will be a real treat for the New Zealand captain. Lastly Jos Buttler continues his rich vein of BBL form to round off our top 5. With just a week gone and a bevy of players ready to join the ranks in Week 2, expect to see big changes as the week progresses. 

Duanne Olivier - 170
Glenn Maxwell - 164 
Kane Williamson - 117
Jos Buttler - 113 
Rashid Khan - 111
Mohammad Abbas - 110
Callum Ferguson - 62
Joe Root- 51
Jeetan Patel - 50
Shakib Al Hasan - 42
Joe Burns - 34

Jonny Bairstow - ytp 
Shubman Gill - ytp 
Simon Harmer - ytp 
Shai Hope - ytp 
Shreyas Iyer - ytp 
Virat Kohli- ytp 
Jack Leach - ytp 
Morne Morkel - ytp 
Wayne Parnell - ytp 
Abdur Razzak- ytp 
Rohit Sharma - ytp 
Ben Stokes - ytp 
Kuldeep Yadav - ytp

Cricket's Hot 24 - From Abbas to Yadav

The old adage that rings in one’s ears at the dawn of a new year is ‘Out with the old and in with the new’ – this is just the same with our list of 24 Cricketers.

So who has been retained in 2019? Who has been let go? And who are the new faces?

Retained players

Shakib Al Hasan

One of the most destructive players on the list in 2018 but held back by injury. If kept fit, 2019 could see him mount a serious challenge on the table.

Jos Buttler

Buttler’s inclusion in the 2018 list was a no brainer; as a T20 franchise favourite he was guaranteed big points. After adding Test cricket into his repertoire and finishing 5^th in the overall league it was obvious he should return into our second year.

Rashid Khan

The Afghanistan spinner was a busy boy in 2018. As the most active player in 2018 and the player that finished second in the overall league, he has to stay on our watch list.

Virat Kohli

Kohli is the biggest name in cricket. It would be pure sacrilege to not have him on a list of the top 24 cricketers in the world right now.

Simon Harmer

It will be no surprise to followers of this blog in 2018 that Harmer has been retained into 2019. The stalwart of Warriors, Essex and Jozi delivered wicket after wicket after wicket last year and should be able to reproduce this form into 2019.

Jeetan Patel

Alongside Rashid Khan, Patel was one of the players who was pushing Harmer for top spot throughout the year. The Wellington and Warwickshire captain should be able to replicate this but at (nearly) 39 – how long until old Father Time catches up with the veteran New Zealander?

Joe Root

Continual tussles with Virat Kohli marked out Joe Root’s year – both on the pitch and in our league placings. Kohli was the higher placed captain overall but will Root be able to overhaul this in an Ashes year?  

Kane Williamson

It was a disappointing year for Williamson in terms of points on the board and in terms of substantial matches played. He is still one of the finest batsmen of his generation so he is retained into 2019.

New players

This list can be split into three. New internationals who have started well, promising youngsters and players with a point to prove.

Mohammad Abbas

Many say that 2019 will be the year this Pakistani talent will take the bull by the horns and stake his claim as the number one bowler in Test cricket. An obvious reason to keep an eye on him.

Jonny Bairstow

At a point of turmoil in the England Test side but a star in the ODI set up. Could be a year of great flux for the wicket-keeper-batsman.

Joe Burns

The first of three Australian batsmen who have faded away from the Australian set up of late. As 2019 sees the Aussies reform, could Burns force his way into the set up?

Callum Ferguson

As time ticks on for Ferguson, he becomes more willing to farm himself out around the world. He signed on the dotted line for Worcestershire this year so will be featuring evermore in 2019.

Shubman Gill

Another great Indian talent forcing his way through domestic cricket. Definitely someone to keep on a list such as this.

Shai Hope

It seems about time we had a fully paid up West Indian national team player in our list and Hope, as a big hitting batsman, is the best candidate. In a World Cup year, Hope is one of the players to keep an eye on.

Shreyas Iyer

One of a group of players on this list with a point to prove. A solid domestic performer but oft overlooked by India – will he use 2019 to push the envelope?

Jack Leach

Leach was given a sniff of a chance by England this year and it was taken with both hands. The next challenge for the Somerset bowler is to keep his place for the Ashes – he has the West Indies to prove himself.

Glenn Maxwell

Very much the forgotten man of the Australian set up, Maxwell is using a well-trodden route to get his name back in the frame. With a lot of cricket scheduled for him in 2019 and the potential of a World Cup place, he needs to be monitored.

Morne Morkel

It has been a year of mixed fortunes for the ex-South African pacer. He absolutely destroyed all commers in Surrey’s charge to the Division One title but went unsold in the IPL auction – can he replicate 2018’s form and become the next Simon Harmer?

Duanne Olivier

Olivier has been a presence in South African domestic cricket for a few seasons now but ended 2018 with a destructive spell against Pakistan that put his name on the lips of all cricket fans. It remains to be seen whether he can become an established part of the Proteas set up or whether he will be a one Test wonder.

Wayne Parnell

Parnell has turned himself into something of a gun all-rounder for hire over the last few years. Couple this with him joining Worcestershire for the full season, he might just surprise a few this year.

Abdur Razzak

It is all very well and good performing at the very highest level with tonnes of adoring fans and sponsorship deals coming out of your ears, but can you do it in front of one man and his dog? Razzak hasn’t played for Bangladesh since February but has been putting in good performances for South Zone and Khulna so is definitely in the ‘Point to Prove’ camp.  

Ben Stokes

There were some rather large question marks over the inclusion of Stokes in the first year of our rankings. With that not an issue this year, he rightfully joins our fold.

Rohit Sharma

A devastating player in the ODI game and definitely someone to have on your list in a World Cup year. Will his domestic and Test output match this though?

Kuldeep Yadav

Another young bowler to have emerged in 2018 makes it onto the best 24 players in the world for 2019. Yadav was not favoured for the tour of Australia, he will be keen to force his way back into contention this year.

Released Players

We have had quite a number of high-profile players not selected this year. Inside the top ten from our 2018 list we see Jofra Archer, Sunil Narine and Aaron Finch all not included due to inconsistent performances.

In the 2019 list we have seen quite a dramatic swing towards English and Indian players at the expense of South African and Australian players. Steve Smith and David Warner do not get selected for obvious reasons and join George Bailey, Nathan Lyon, Shaun and Mitchell Marsh who we have shied away from due to the question marks over the Australian national team. In terms of South Africa; AB De Villiers’ semi-retirement sees him deselected alongside Quinton De Kock, Dean Elgar, JP Duminy and Hashim Amla.   

India’s Ravis, Ashwin and Jadeja, round off the list of discards.