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
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