Nobody wants to face off against Virat Kohli when he is in red hot form - but if you are West Indian there must be a fresh kind of terror that bubbles up from your core when you see the imp faced batsman in his crease. Last week I pointed out that Kohli's return to our weekly top five may presage big things to come and it did - in fact it presaged his second Cricketer of the Week accolade. This is still much lower than you would have expected the world class batsman to have attained by this point of the year - however it does catapult him into the overall top five for the first time in many a moon. Kohli has been in rich form since the World Cup - which must be a bitter pill to swallow for any Indian fans. His 550 points in his three active weeks since the World Cup is impressive when you consider that he only scored 220 more in the whole of the six week tournament. This being said, Kohli has form of exploiting the West Indian bowlers. His yield of 374 points is his highest weekly points since late October last year when he got 417 for getting two centuries against the West Indies - just as he did this week. With his old rival, Joe Root struggling in The Ashes at the moment, it is not inconceivable that Kohli may force his way further up the table with the two Tests on the horizon.
Kohli is yet another Indian player to feature in our top 5 over the last two weeks. Last week Shubman Gill, Kohli and Rohit Sharma were all in the top five, whereas this week Kohli is joined by Shreyas Iyer and perennial disappointment Kuldeep Yadav taking advantage of a low scoring week to finish in sixth overall. It seems we are experiencing something of an Indian summer. With five internationals in our list, India is joint first with England in terms of representation but unlike England there is much more of a spread across the overall table. India have two players in the top ten; Kohli in fifth and Sharma in tenth, whereas England have Joe Root (3rd), Jonny Baristow (6th) and Ben Stokes (7th). These five are all fine players and deserve their spot in the top ten. Jos Buttler is still a surprise to be outside the top ten and languishes in eleventh. Behind that main core of internationals there are three players - three Indian and one English - that make up the full compliment. For India, Shreyas Iyer is definitely one for the future. After a very successful Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy and a relatively average IPL, Iyer was left out of the Indian World Cup side which saw his positions on the overall table drop. He is now dead in the middle of the table and has not been selected for the Indian Test sides so will be away from the game for a while - such inconsistency of selection has held the young man back this year. Further down the pack is Shubman Gill. A spectacular performance last week for India A boosted his total but he is still way behind the pack. Lastly comes Kuldeep Yadav in 21st place. A hugely disappointing year in the shorter format for both Kolkata and India has seen him fall behind the pace in a drastic fashion. A return to Tests may well see him pick up more points but if the ship hasn't already sailed it's certainly leaving the dock. So for India that makes two core world class players and three peripheral ones. The only outlier for England, other than the phenomena of Jos Buttler, is Jack Leach. A player who has impressed far more for England than he has for Somerset this year, Leach is in 19th place overall but may well be moving up if he becomes a regular member of the England set up. So what does all this tell us? Well, India are very reliant on two world class players who bat at the top of the order whereas England have more reliable players throughout the order. Another finding could be that in Iyer and Gill, India have a stronger second bank of players that they can call on if needs be. In a year where head to heads between England and India are limited, this is the only way we can match up the two squads currently and I think England just about have the edge.
On the domestic front, the T20 Blast rumbles on dodging the rain where it can and my eye was drawn to two performers whose lack of performance has been eye-catching throughout the year. One I have mentioned a lot is Rashid Khan. I will not go into all the details as to Rashid's poor year or my prognosis that he has been found out but the fact that he registered a 0 point game for Sussex against Surrey is a further sign of the young man's decline. He is back down to ninth in our overall table and has Rohit Sharma breathing down his neck. Another bowler who has been underwhelming in all formats this year has been high profile Yorkshire acquisition, Duanne Olivier. His yield of a solitary point this year made him an eye-catching talking point but his position in 15th position and sliding downwards will be troubling for him. His figures this week against Derbyshire were a shocking 3-0-47-0, an economy of 15.66! In all formats this year, Olivier has been averaging one wicket an innings - which is not what a world class 'international' bowler should be boasting in a domestic sphere. There are a myriad of names that we can compare Olivier to in our list. High-flying Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel are 1348 and 1396 points above him respectively. A better comparison would be Morne Morkel who despite the fact he does not play T20 Blast or the One Day Cup and has subsequently been inactive four weeks more than Olivier only trails his South African compatriot by 204 runs. It has been a poor year for Olivier so far and one wonders whether he, Yorkshire or both of them regret the decision they made at the start of the year.
Week
Virat Kohli - 374
Shreyas Iyer - 226
Glenn Maxwell - 139
Callum Ferguson - 95
Wayne Parnell - 76
Kuldeep Yadav - 50
Jeetan Patel - 40
Shai Hope - 29
Rohit Sharma- 28
Morne Morkel - 10
Duanne Olivier - 1
Rashid Khan - 0
Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Jonny Bairstow - dnp
Joe Burns- dnp
Jos Buttler - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Jack Leach- dnp
Abdur Razzak - dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp
Overall
Glenn Maxwell - 4578
Jeetan Patel - 3702
Simon Harmer - 3654
Joe Root- 3309
Virat Kohli- 3137
Jonny Bairstow - 3029
Ben Stokes - 3011
Shakib Al Hasan - 2990
Rashid Khan - 2835
Rohit Sharma - 2765
Jos Buttler - 2502
Wayne Parnell - 2451
Kane Williamson - 2414
Shreyas Iyer - 2370
Duanne Olivier - 2306
Morne Morkel - 2102
Shai Hope - 1890
Callum Ferguson - 1779
Jack Leach - 1683
Shubman Gill - 1681
Mohammad Abbas - 1655
Kuldeep Yadav - 1452
Joe Burns - 928
Abdur Razzak- 898
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