Shreyas Iyer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Even in a cricketer's wildest dreams, weeks like Shreyas Iyer's past seven days come rarely. The young Indian has managed to catapult himself up the overall table with the highest score of 2019, propel himself to his inaugural Cricketer of the Week accolade and launch himself into contention for a World Cup spot. We have seen similar bursts of form like this before. Last year, at about this time, Sunil Narine used the Regional Super50 tournament to play two or three one day games a week and cement his place in the top ten. Iyer is doing a similar thing with the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. This week he has scored a phenomenal 296 runs for Mumbai across three games in this tournament, including two centuries. This success has seen him kick start his 2019. At the start of the week, Iyer was just outside the bottom 5 for points overall - he now finds himself just outside the top 5, 30 points off Duanne Olivier. What is even more spectacular about Iyer's performances this week are his strike rates - against Sikkim he reached 147 off 55 balls and in the game versus Madhya Pradesh he got 103 off 55. With this destructive One Day form I can't help but imagine that Iyer will be able to force his way into the squad for England - and what a danger he will be!

I can't help but notice that this year's overall list sees all-rounders take the lead at the end of Week 8. Despite the fact that Shakib Al Hasan has been injured for two weeks he still reigns supreme in the top spot of our overall league. This week Ben Stokes moves into second spot and becomes the second person to pass 1000 points for the year. This week has seen Stokes performing at his Botham-like best. With a cumulative run total of 122 runs and five wickets across three 50 over games, we have seen Stokes at his emphatic best in the West Indies this week - a continuation of the fine form that he displayed towards the end of the Test series. Stokes has managed to find himself in a rhythm of particularly strong form with both bat and ball since his high profile sabbatical from the team last year. His metronomic deliveries are quite a sight to behold - unless you are on the receiving end of them. With a further three ODIs on the horizon, I can't think of any reason why Stokes will not be able to overtake Shakib as the best cricketer in the world by this time next week. 

He has been a surprise high flyer in 2019 - and still is in the top 5 Cricketers in 2019 - but I can't help but think a picture of Glenn Maxwell needs to be placed next to the adjective 'anti-climactic' in the dictionary. He appeared to be building up to something big - 61 runs against Perth contributed to his 136 points in Week 6, then 82 against the Sydney Sixers saw him register 255 last week. The stage was set for Maxwell to register his first century of the competition in the final. Instead, he got out for 1. In many ways 1is more anti-climactic than a duck - and certainly much funnier. That single run would have given the Melbourne Stars' fans something to cheer about - and then came Chris Tremain and Mackenzie Harvey to ruin everyone's fun. Maxwell won't have to wait too long to put things right as he will feature for the Australia team in their first T20 against India this afternoon. The jury is still out on how long he can remain in the top 5 Cricketers in the world - this week he slipped from second to fourth - but he will certainly be hoping to register more than the solitary point at least.

Week

Shreyas Iyer - 446
Joe Root - 362
Ben Stokes - 332
Duanne Olivier - 302
Shai Hope - 167
Jonny Bairstow- 150 
Rashid Khan - 150
Wayne Parnell - 81
Jeetan Patel - 80
Jos Buttler - 78
Shubman Gill - 23
Glenn Maxwell - 1

Mohammad Abbas - dnp 
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Joe Burns - dnp 
Callum Ferguson - dnp 
Simon Harmer - dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Jack Leach - dnp 
Rohit Sharma- dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp
Kuldeep Yadav - dnp 

Morne Morkel- ytp 
Abdur Razzak - ytp 

Overall 

Shakib Al Hasan - 1171
Ben Stokes - 1104
Joe Root- 977
Glenn Maxwell - 831
Duanne Olivier - 793
Shreyas Iyer - 769
Kane Williamson - 711
Rohit Sharma - 697
Rashid Khan - 582
Kuldeep Yadav - 568
Callum Ferguson - 512
Simon Harmer - 500
Jonny Bairstow - 492
Jos Buttler - 487
Virat Kohli- 444
Joe Burns - 366
Shai Hope - 354
Jeetan Patel - 297
Mohammad Abbas - 260
Shubman Gill - 168
Wayne Parnell - 133
Jack Leach - 65

Morne Morkel - ytp 
Abdur Razzak- ytp