The fact that, after forty five weeks, a player can come from the bottom three of the table and produce a simply astonishing performance shows that you are never quite dead in this game. Abdur Razzak has been rooted near the foot of the table for many months now. He has been at something of a disadvantage all year. He was the second to last player to register a point due to the fact that he didn't play until Week 9 and he has also been the most inactive player of 2019 with 32 inactive weeks. With this working against him, it is almost an achievement that he is not at the very foot of the table however his average points per week played is a fairly healthy 132.69 - a score that would often get you in the top five of The Weekly List. This week, however, was an exceptional one for the bowler with almost Harmer-like figures for the ex-Bangladesh international. He registered figures of 7-69 in the first innings and 5-71 as Khulna had the beating of Rangpur in the Bangladesh National Cricket League. This puts the 37 year old veteran at the top of the wicket taking tally with 25 wickets in five games. Since the start of this competition, he has picked up 897 points - not bad going considering that up until 5 weeks ago he had just 898 overall. As well as scoring his second Cricketer of the Week accolade, he also marked his 600th wicket in First Class cricket - the first Bangladeshi to achieve the feat. For the longest period of time it seemed like the bottom three of Kuldeep Yadav, Razzak and Joe Burns would remain at the foot of the table for the end of the year, however Razzak is now just 244 from a stuttering Mohammad Abbas. It might be the case that a resurgent Bangladesh player may do what Ravi Jadeja did last year and form a very late surge up The List and finish in mid table.
Rohit Sharma and Jonny Bairstow are in eighth and ninth place respectively on the overall List, however they have come from different directions. An astonishing IPL, a decent World Cup and a woeful Ashes saw Bairstow fall from a year high of third position to descend as the year went on. Sharma's year has gone in the opposite direction. A disappointing IPL saw him start the World Cup in 12th position. He then was the fourth highest player on our List for points gained during the World Cup and ended the tournament in eighth. Since then some phenomenal Test performances have seen him comfortably remain in the Top Ten. So these two talented batsmen are sandwiched together and appear locked in a bit of a dogfight as to who can move up the table and who may fall away. Last week Bairstow got a very impressive 193 whilst Rohit Sharma had a week off. This week Rohit finishes third with 154 whilst Bairstow is in 7th - however there is just 22 points between them. In fact positions four to ten are ridiculously close - with just 185 points between Virat Kohli and Ben Stokes. As we approach the closing weeks of the year that top ten position is still remarkably fluid.
And then we turn - yet again - to Kuldeep Yadav. Every time we talk about Kuldeep it is in negative terms. Throughout 2019 he has been phased out of the Test team, has seen Navdeep Saini put his ODI position in question and saw him finish the IPL on the bench for Kolkata. This week saw him return to his domestic team Uttar Pradesh for a fresh start. A chance to show what he can do at the start of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy....and he got just 26 points as Vidarbha needed only 7.5 runs to win the game. It really is looking bleak for the spinner. On the other side of the coin, it was another top five Week for Shubman Gill as he got 72 runs across his two games for Punjab. This has seen him jump two more places in the overall table and end the week in 16th place overall. The last two weeks has seen Shubman pick up 357 points - another sign that when the young man plays regularly he plays well. With a number of T20 games on the horizon it might be a good chance for the Indian batsman to challenge those above him - on the other side of the coin it might just be more of the same for Kuldeep.
Week
Abdur Razzak - 366
Shai Hope - 171
Rohit Sharma - 154
Shubman Gill - 153
Joe Burns- 126
Shreyas Iyer - 116
Jonny Bairstow - 103
Rashid Khan - 72
Callum Ferguson - 62
Kuldeep Yadav - 26
Simon Harmer - 25
Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Jos Buttler - dnp
Virat Kohli - dnp
Jack Leach - dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Morne Morkel - dnp
Duanne Olivier - dnp
Wayne Parnell - dnp
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp
Overall
Glenn Maxwell - 5712
Simon Harmer - 4999
Jeetan Patel - 4385
Virat Kohli- 3891
Shakib Al Hasan -3862
Rashid Khan - 3853
Joe Root- 3769
Rohit Sharma - 3747
Jonny Bairstow - 3725
Ben Stokes - 3706
Shreyas Iyer - 3116
Duanne Olivier - 2852
Jos Buttler - 2793
Wayne Parnell - 2743
Kane Williamson - 2524
Shubman Gill - 2459
Morne Morkel - 2438
Jack Leach - 2378
Shai Hope - 2299
Callum Ferguson - 2076
Mohammad Abbas - 1969
Abdur Razzak- 1725
Kuldeep Yadav - 1720
Joe Burns - 1451
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