He has had to wait some time to be our Cricketer of the Week for the second time in 2019 but Simon Harmer is back in the top spot once again thanks to an eight wicket haul for Essex against Nottinghamshire. Harmer has not been as dominant this year as he was last. In gameweek 20 of 2018 he was Cricketer of the Week just as he is in gameweek 20 of 2019 - the difference is that this was his fourth such accolade whilst this is just his second of 2018. By this point he was also the best Cricketer in our overall list with 2927 points and a 300 point lead over Rashid Khan. This week's haul of 303 points puts him in 8th with a year total of 1763 - over 1000 less than this point last year. A lot of this can be put down to the fact that the structure of the County Championship season has changed this year and the Royal London One Day Cup moved earlier in the year to facilitate the World Cup however it cannot be argued that the South African spinner has been less effective this year than last. We now have a fairly lengthily spell of County Championship games wherein Harmer can find his form and pick up some big points but there is a growing chasm at the top of the table that he will need to make up to be statistically the best player in the world as he was in 2018.
When any World Cup looms large on the horizon the home team get extra scrutiny. This is especially the case when that home team is England. A team that have regularly been playing the best ODI cricket in the world for the last three years. This scrutiny is holding up quite well as a number of English players have been performing well throughout the year whilst another group of Englishmen have upped their game this week. Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root have both been flying high this year. Bairstow was not in our list last year and his inclusion this year has seen him play a pivotal role for Hyderabad in the IPL and transition very naturally into an explosive ODI opener. This has seen him a regular feature in the overall top 5 - and this consistency has seen him overtake some inactive players to take second spot. Joe Root has rejoined the top five at the expense of his longtime rival, Virat Kohli. His performances have also been consistent in the ODI game however his inability to produce big scores holds him back from finishing in the weekly top 5. Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes have had disappointing years overall. At the start of the week they were 14th and 10th respectively and a long way off the pack. Ben Stokes was not part of our list last year for judicial reasons but Buttler was 7th with 2064 points compared to the 1381 points he had as of last week. Some comparatively strong performances this week against Pakistan have seen them boost their positions and finish with their highest scores in many weeks however they have a long way to go to move up the overall rankings. However there is a World Cup just round the corner.
I spend so long focussing on the top of the table that it easy to forget that there is also an Englishman at the bottom of the table. Jack Leach had his best week of 2019 this week thanks to six wickets for Somerset against Surrey to gain 226 points - 62% of his total points from the other 19 weeks of the year. This is harsh to the Taunton-born spinner. He was an unused squad member for England's tour of the West Indies and was never due to be a part of Somerset's One Day Cup jaunts and has therefore only been active for 5 gameweeks out of 20. So there he sits - despite the joint fifth highest score of the Week - at the bottom of the table with a huge gulf between him and second bottom placed Joe Burns who has returned to action after his own spell of inactivity with a score of 10 for Lancashire against Northamptonshire. Leach is very likely to be part of the squad for the Ashes - a series where his spin may be called for more than it was in the West Indies - however the question is how far will he be behind the pack by then?
Week
Simon Harmer - 303
Shai Hope - 281
Jonny Bairstow- 279
Jeetan Patel - 277
Jack Leach 226
Joe Root - 226
Duanne Olivier - 221
Jos Buttler - 200
Mohammad Abbas - 191
Ben Stokes - 188
Shakib Al Hasan - 179
Morne Morkel - 98
Rohit Sharma - 15
Joe Burns - 10
Callum Ferguson - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Shreyas Iyer - dnp
Rashid Khan - dnp
Virat Kohli - dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Wayne Parnell - dnp
Abdur Razzak - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp
Kuldeep Yadav- dnp
Overall
Glenn Maxwell - 3808
Jonny Bairstow - 1950
Rashid Khan - 1898
Shreyas Iyer - 1887
Joe Root- 1832
Jeetan Patel - 1823
Virat Kohli- 1789
Simon Harmer - 1763
Shakib Al Hasan - 1704
Ben Stokes - 1671
Rohit Sharma - 1619
Duanne Olivier - 1618
Jos Buttler - 1581
Kane Williamson - 1324
Wayne Parnell - 1197
Shai Hope - 1135
Kuldeep Yadav - 1022
Callum Ferguson - 902
Abdur Razzak- 898
Shubman Gill - 846
Mohammad Abbas - 764
Morne Morkel - 752
Joe Burns - 709
Jack Leach - 583
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