Between the end of the series between England and Pakistan, the World Cup warm-up and the final of the Royal London One Day Cup, it is easy to forget that there was a round of County Championship matches this week. A round that was dominated by Worcestershire's Wayne Parnell who quietly blasted his way to the top of the weekly table with a domineering performance against fellow Division 2 promotion chasers, Lancashire. This is Parnell's second Cricketer of the Week accolade for May, his first coming for two fivefers in two games in the One Day Cup - this time round he showed his capabilities as a true allrounder with 108 of his 268 points coming from the bat. These two performances alone have seen him surreptitiously rise up from the bottom positions in the table. He started May in the bottom 5 with 531 points - four weeks and nearly 1000 points later he is now comfortably middle of the table in 14th place - one position above Kane Williamson and one below Duanne Olivier. There's not many County Championship games which Jimmy Anderson plays in where he ends up as second fiddle in the bowling department but Parnell managed to pull that off this week. Worcestershire are in action again next week and another huge score for Parnell could be on the cards yet again.
Besides the County Championship, there is the small matter of a World Cup that starts next week. So who is going into this tournament in good form and who is going to have to turn the tide? Let's start with those who are brimming with confidence. A player who has done consistently well this year is Joe Root. A stalwart of these posts over the last 18 months - his overall yield was disappointing throughout 2018 and he never really forced himself onto the top 5. This has not been the case in 2019 where he has been in the overall top five on and off throughout the year. He finished the series against Pakistan with a big(ish) score of 84 - his highest total since his century against the West Indies in February. Hopefully the Englishman can take this form into the World Cup - however it is a notable feature of Root's game that he tends to perform very well approaching big series but then melts away under the pressure. Could the World Cup be another example of this? Perhaps it is an omen that Root finishes this week with the overall score of 1966 - another famous World Cup winning year. Fellow Englishman Jos Buttler is the inverse Joe Root. A force to be reckoned with in 2018 and hardly ever out of the overall top ten - Buttler has only just entered the top ten this year thanks to his performances against Pakistan and Australia. Whilst 34 and 52 are not huge scores for Buttler, his overall performance including strike rate and his skill with the gloves sees him finish second for the week and start the World Cup with him hitting his stride at just the right time. Rashid Khan is the last player who is going into the tournament well. After a comparatively disappointing year, his outings in the warm up games against Ireland and Pakistan has seen Rashid performing like the player of old. His 4 wickets across his three games coupled with a decent economy has seen him regain second spot for the year off Jonny Bairstow. Rashid loves to play tournaments with a quick turnaround between games - something the World Cup delivers in spades - so I would expect his form to continue in this way.
All of the cricketing world are expecting India to perform well in this World Cup. Despite their warm-up loss to New Zealand yesterday they are still the bookies second favourites for the trophy and a team packed with stars will always do well. The problem is that some of their biggest stars are not in the form that they would like. The most prevalent example of this is Kuldeep Yadav. The year started with Kuldeep riding high for India in their series against Australia. He was featuring in both their Test team as well as their ODI side and looked like a good young prospect. Since then form has not been on his side. After an insipid IPL tournament in which he was dropped by Kolkata, he returned from four weeks away from the game to score just 19 points this week and continue his spell without major wickets. Over his last ten games in all formats he has just four wickets. He has slipped down to 17th place and is looking like he may struggle to regain his place in the India team so I can only see his trajectory being downwards. Another Indian player who is not in great form is the IPL winning captain Rohit Sharma. It may seem counterintuitive to say that a player whose side most recently won the premier domestic T20 tournament in the world might be questioning his form but The Hitman's aim has been pretty out of focus for a while now. Over his last ten innings in all formats he has scored under 20 runs on five occasions and in single figures three times. This dire run of form sees him outside our overall top ten and with less points than Shakib Al Hasan - a player who has featured in ten fewer gameweeks than he has. Virat Kohli is in a similar position. A disappointing IPL for him has seen the free-flowing batsman look anything but free-flowing. His stats are similar to Rohit's - over his last ten innings in all formats five have been below 20 however he does have a century against Kolkata to boost his average over that time. Up until last week, Kohli was in our overall top five and currently sits seventh and I would expect him to have a decent performance - however if South Africa and Australia get him out cheaply the most confident man in world cricket might just start having a bit of a crisis.
Week
Wayne Parnell - 268
Jos Buttler - 226
Rashid Khan - 211
Morne Morkel - 181
Joe Root - 134
Jack Leach - 129
Kane Williamson- 87
Jonny Bairstow - 84
Jeetan Patel - 84
Glenn Maxwell - 78
Ben Stokes - 61
Shai Hope - 31
Kuldeep Yadav - 29
Virat Kohli - 28
Rohit Sharma - 12
Callum Ferguson - 8
Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Joe Burns- dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Shreyas Iyer- dnp
Duanne Olivier - dnp
Abdur Razzak - dnp
Overall
Glenn Maxwell - 3232
Rashid Khan - 2109
Jonny Bairstow - 2034
Joe Root- 1966
Jeetan Patel - 1907
Shreyas Iyer - 1887
Virat Kohli- 1817
Jos Buttler - 1807
Simon Harmer - 1763
Ben Stokes - 1732
Shakib Al Hasan - 1704
Rohit Sharma - 1631
Duanne Olivier - 1618
Wayne Parnell - 1465
Kane Williamson - 1411
Shai Hope - 1166
Kuldeep Yadav - 1051
Morne Morkel - 933
Callum Ferguson - 910
Abdur Razzak- 898
Shubman Gill - 846
Mohammad Abbas - 764
Jack Leach - 714
Joe Burns - 709
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