So last week I was a fully paid up member of the 'England are Crap at Cricket' Club. The future of English Cricket was desolate and nothing or nobody would stop it from becoming a secondary sport akin to kabaddi or slalom canoeing. Then came Ben Stokes. Beautiful Ben Stokes. One of the Best Test innings you will ever see showcased Stokes' ability to switch up through the gears in a performance that started in stoic defence and ended like a T20. Stokes was not the hero that England fans deserved but he was the hero they needed. Last week, we discussed the moveable feast that was fifth place in the overall table and speculated as to who would take on the mantle next. One scenario that I didn't envisage was someone shifting up to fourth; however Super Stokes' superb showing sees him knock Joe Root - who didn't have a bad week himself - off his fourth position Perth and break up the top 4 love-in of Glenn Maxwell, Simon Harmer, Jeetan Patel and Root for the first time in seven weeks. Ben Stokes' growing potential as a genuine all rounder will help his overall performance in a top ten that has seen the likes of Maxwell and Shakib Al Hasan both score prolifically. Long live King Ben as this Ashes series progresses.
Stokes was one of just three players that moved up the overall table this week but was certainly one that did so off just one match. Away from the media glare and further towards the bottom of our overall table, Shubman Gill had another good week. After a fairly quiet IPL and his lack of selection by India, Gill has shown flashes of inspiration which has helped him move towards mid table. At the mid point of the year, Gill seemed a fairly certain candidate to finish near the foot of the table, however over the last seven weeks he has finished in the weekly top five four times and accrued 743 points. This has seen him move from third bottom overall to a slightly more respectable sixth bottom. He overleaped inactive Callum Ferguson and Mohammad Abbas this week to put him 230 points above the bottom three. It could be a season in the sun for the young Indian as he represents his nation's A team against South Africa A in a series of five ODIs over the course of the next two weeks. This could be make or break for the youngster. If he does well there, he will edge his way up the table and force the selectors into selecting him for a full representative ODI. Alternatively he could underwhelm, stay in the bottom third of the table and continue to have another year where he was the understudy rather than being in the main show.
That fifth position merry go round is not the only hotly contested spot on our table. Second and third is equally as fought over, however the difference is that it is just being passed back and forth between spin twins Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel. This week Harmer takes second place from Patel again - the sixth time in the last eight weeks where the two have switched positions. These two have been cemented together since the back end of 2018. Last year they both finished in first and second spot and this year they seem likely to be riding tandem throughout the year again. This being said, there is one crucial difference that may give one of them the edge in coming weeks. Patel's Warwickshire side have been eliminated from the T20 Blast, whilst Harmer's Essex March on. If Essex can make it to Finals Day that may well be a further three games that the South African has over his New Zealand counterpart - however if Lancashire see off Essex it could just be a mere one game. Even in the circumstance that Harmer does play a further three games, due to T20 not being his favoured form of the game, he may well just pick up a couple of hundred points and ,with the current lead a mere 31, that means it still is very much all to play for in the battle of the spinners.
Week
Ben Stokes - 323
Glenn Maxwell - 229
Simon Harmer - 137
Joe Root - 117
Shubman Gill - 105
Jonny Bairstow- 100
Shai Hope - 86
Jeetan Patel - 80
Virat Kohli - 90
Jack Leach - 42
Kane Williamson - 40
Jos Buttler - 6
Wayne Parnell - 1
Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Joe Burns - dnp
Callum Ferguson- dnp
Shreyas Iyer - dnp
Rashid Khan - dnp
Morne Morkel- dnp
Duanne Olivier- dnp
Abdur Razzak - dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp
Kuldeep Yadav - dnp
Overall
Glenn Maxwell - 4858
Simon Harmer - 3936
Jeetan Patel - 3905
Ben Stokes - 3532
Joe Root- 3450
Jonny Bairstow - 3271
Virat Kohli- 3227
Shakib Al Hasan - 2990
Rohit Sharma - 2853
Rashid Khan - 2835
Wayne Parnell - 2619
Jos Buttler - 2571
Duanne Olivier - 2534
Kane Williamson - 2498
Shreyas Iyer - 2370
Morne Morkel - 2172
Shai Hope - 1976
Jack Leach - 1891
Shubman Gill - 1792
Callum Ferguson - 1790
Mohammad Abbas - 1705
Kuldeep Yadav - 1562
Joe Burns - 928
Abdur Razzak- 898
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