The sight of a rejuvenated Jonny Bairstow opening the batting for any team is a sight for sore eyes for England fans in the eve of the World Cup. The players has looked rather beleaguered of late. The Bairstow of last Summer was firing on all cylinders - three centuries in succession and four in the space of three months made him a force to be reckoned with. Then came a barren spell with no centuries and only two half centuries in 12 games for England. He was one of the more unimpressive performers in all three formats of the series against West Indies and question marks were being drawn above his head by amateur selectors. He is now second in the IPL run scoring rankings with 262 in five games and he looks like a player reborn. To put this in comparison, Bairstow's last three T20 games in an England shirt saw him average 39 against the West Indies. His three games this week has seen him average 59.33 - the highlight being his 114 runs off 56 balls with 12 fours and 7 sixes. Such is the poor form of Bairstow in the early part of 2019 that, despite being joint fifth last week and first this week, he still finds himself outside of the top five on the overall table - trailing Ben Stokes by 51 points. It is very difficult to compare international games to the IPL - however if it is form and confidence we are talking about, Bairstow will be joining up with his English compatriots with buckets of it.
India's captain is finding it much harder to captain Bangalore than he does his national team - and that is saying something. Undoubtably Virat Kohli is a once in a generation player - but too often we see these amazing players thrust the captaincy of teams as they are guaranteed a place rather than for their credentials as a captain. There have always been swirling buzzards of discontent circling Virat's captaincy but this week has seen them swoop down to pick at the carcass of Bangalore's IPL season. Virat's inept nature as a captain is usually well hidden by the fact that India's talent on the pitch sees them prevail. In Australia there were some very odd team selections, daft field settings and nonsensical bowling choices but they still walked away with a drawn T20 series and victories in the Tests and ODIs. For Bangalore he is not having such luck. Instead he is having to mask his inadequacy through trying to carry the team on his own. His 231 points this week is his third highest of the year - however he appears to be batting long rather than batting well. Today's game against Delhi is a case in point of this. He picked up 61 points for scoring 41 at a strike rate of 124.24 spanning 17 overs. He only played at 26 out of the 81 balls bowled and absorbed 17 consecutive singles. Decent points scored - but to the detriment of his team. He is still one of the highest performers in the IPL of all our contributors - but at what cost to his reputation?
After a strong showing in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Shreyas Iyer has continued his fine spell of form into the IPL. He is not grabbing the headlines as some of the other players on the list but his 215 runs across six games sees him in third place - above such media darlings as Andre Russell, Rishabh Pant and Jos Buttler. The secret to Iyer's success has been consistency. Half of his six innings have seen him score over 40 runs and his lowest score in the tournament has been 16. He is regularly grinding out scores from first drop that guide his team's through that difficult transition period and usher them towards victory. He is so ridiculously consistent that over his last ten innings he has scored 43 runs three times. It is not just in total runs scored that we see this lack of variability for the Indian. In each of his four innings this week he has strike rates north of 100 but never edging over 150. This ensures he is always scoring at least run a ball but never forgetting the value of his wicket. Iyer is following the JP Duminy model to success - last year it was the South African player who was the quiet man at the top of the table - however he will hope to not fade away like JPD did. Integral to this is earning himself a place in the India squad for the World Cup. That all important fourth batting spot is still up for grabs and many believe that whoever impresses in the IPL can grab it. With Iyer being the top Indian run scorer, it is within his grasp.
Week
Jonny Bairstow- 318
Shreyas Iyer- 291
Virat Kohli - 231
Glenn Maxwell - 170
Duanne Olivier - 140
Jos Buttler - 135
Ben Stokes - 97
Wayne Parnell - 85
Kuldeep Yadav- 80
Rashid Khan - 70
Abdur Razzak- 57
Morne Morkel- 50
Rohit Sharma- 44
Shubman Gill - 37
Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Joe Burns- dnp
Callum Ferguson - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Shai Hope - dnp
Jack Leach- dnp
Joe Root- dnp
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp
Overall
Glenn Maxwell - 1953
Shreyas Iyer - 1461
Rashid Khan - 1459
Virat Kohli- 1373
Ben Stokes - 1339
Jonny Bairstow - 1288
Shakib Al Hasan - 1191
Rohit Sharma - 1162
Joe Root- 1102
Kane Williamson - 1089
Jos Buttler - 1029
Kuldeep Yadav - 960
Duanne Olivier - 933
Simon Harmer - 702
Joe Burns - 699
Callum Ferguson - 671
Jeetan Patel - 625
Abdur Razzak- 605
Mohammad Abbas - 471
Shai Hope - 465
Shubman Gill - 395
Wayne Parnell - 233
Jack Leach - 118
Morne Morkel - 113
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