Wayne Parnell is becoming a regular fixture at the top of our list of the best Cricketers of the Week. His table topping performance this week is the fourth time he has finished top of the tree this year and becomes just the second person to do it in back to back weeks after Simon Harmer achieved the same feat two weeks ago. Only Harmer and Glenn Maxwell have finished top of the table more times in 2019 - however Maxwell and Harmer are first and second whilst Parnell languishes in thirteenth on the overall table. This is a tale of what could have been for the South African bowler. Much like the boy at school who was captain of the football team and all an annoyingly good Cricketer when he participates he can destroy all comers but seemed unbothered for most of the year. Glenn Maxwell is the all-conquering leader of our game at the moment and has opened up his first position spot in a low scoring week by scoring 202 points and extending his gap on second place to 797. This being said Maxwell has played a damn sight more cricket than most others - and certainly more than Parnell. Maxwell has been active in every game Week this year bar one. This is an incredible feat of endurance in itself but does put him at an advantage to Parnell who has been inactive in seventeen of the thirty one weeks of the year. What's even more stark is comparing the two players across the weeks that they have both featured. In that instance Maxwell's total is then brought down to 2573 compared to Parnell's 2275 - a lead of just 298. Parnell's fitness has really held him back from being a very strong contender in our game. As it stands, he is just 341 points away from forcing himself into the top ten - something I don't think we can begrudge him on terms of performance.
Parnell is one of only three players who have moved position in the overall table this week. The other two have had drastically different 2019s which their positions in the table are testament to. First up is Simon Harmer, whose perennial tussle with Jeetan Patel for second place continues. These two have been alternating in second place for the last month now and Harmer's unimpressive 80 from two games for Essex gave him the edge on Patel whose 5 points from one Warwickshire game was even less worthy of credit. As I have said previously, neither of these players feel at home in the T20 format and it is unlikely that either of them will break away from the other until we see a return to County Championship cricket. Likewise they are 400 points off Joe Root in fourth so, short of an unlikely avalanche of points for the England captain they are relatively insulated in the silver and bronze spot. The other player to have taken advantage of a week where many of our players were inactive was Shubman Gill. Shubman is one of the next big things of Indian cricket and many thought that 2019 would be his year however he has failed to take off. Largely anonymous in the IPL and failing to catch the eye for Indian selection for the World Cup or their tour to the West Indies, he has had to busy himself with performances for India A. This week his score of 60 - courtesy of 40 runs and two catches - is enough to see him jump from third bottom to fourth bottom, overtaking another Indian disappointment Kuldeep Yadav. Just as the top three are cutting themselves off, the bottom four are also beginning to drift away. There is now 234 points between 19th place Callum Ferguson and Shubman. It would seem that those bottom four of Gill, Kuldeep, Burns and Razzak are going to have to do something special not to finish in the bottom berths by the end of the year.
At this point of the year we can begin to see how our table may look come December. With 20 weeks left in the game there is still a lot to play for but some who are falling behind are latching onto trends that might find very hard to shake. Two players who have featured in our list since the start of 2018 are having below par years in 2019 - Virat Kohli and Rashid Khan. But how poorly do they match up against their 2018 selves? There are two different, and equally flawed, ways of looking at this. First on points. Here Rashid is worse off than Kohli. At this point of 2018 Rashid had 3619 points compared to his total of 2764 points this year. This is a difference of 855 points. Kohli is also in a deficit but not quite as badly, with his 2019 total of 2616 being 393 different to his 3009 at this point last year. Many of you who have been following this from the start may be able to think of a reason for this, namely that we changed points for bowlers this year. Previously we allocated 5 points for every maiden innings over and above the scores we awarded for economy rates. This would have had an impact on Rashid's scores. However we can compare Rashid to another two players to truly measure that impact. Harmer and Patel would have been effected more by this ruling due to the fact that they bowl more in longer form cricket than Rashid does, however they are still way up there in second and third place overall in 2019. Harmer's points are actually down 687 whilst Patel's are down just 411. If these bowlers who were going to be effected MORE are down LESS than Rashid that doesn't reflect overly well on the Afghan. In terms of position in the overall table, Rashid is worse off too. At this point in 2018 Rashid sat in third spot behind Harmer and Patel, whilst Kohli was in sixth. This week Rashid is five positions worse in 8th and Kohli sits in tenth spot. Whilst both of these superstars of world cricket will be disappointed with their year thus far, it is the Afghanistan spinner that has the biggest deficit as we approach the end of the year.
Week
Wayne Parnell - 251
Glenn Maxwell - 202
Simon Harmer - 80
Callum Ferguson - 70
Shubman Gill - 60
Rashid Khan - 57
Duanne Olivier - 40
Rohit Sharma- 34
Virat Kohli - 29
Jeetan Patel - 5
Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Jonny Bairstow- dnp
Joe Burns - dnp
Jos Buttler - dnp
Shai Hope - dnp
Shreyas Iyer - dnp
Morne Morkel- dnp
Jack Leach - dnp
Abdur Razzak- dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp
Kuldeep Yadav- dnp
Overall
Glenn Maxwell - 4439
Simon Harmer - 3642
Jeetan Patel - 3574
Joe Root- 3174
Shakib Al Hasan - 2990
Jonny Bairstow - 2965
Ben Stokes - 2805
Rashid Khan - 2764
Rohit Sharma - 2632
Virat Kohli- 2616
Jos Buttler - 2476
Kane Williamson - 2404
Wayne Parnell - 2275
Duanne Olivier - 2265
Shreyas Iyer - 2144
Morne Morkel - 2092
Shai Hope - 1861
Jack Leach - 1683
Mohammad Abbas - 1655
Callum Ferguson - 1651
Shubman Gill - 1417
Kuldeep Yadav - 1402
Joe Burns - 928
Abdur Razzak- 898
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