Steve Smith - The Best Cricketer of the Week

The inaugural Cricketer of the Week accolade for Steven Peter Devereux Smith comes in Week 106 of these posts. Smith was selected in 2018 but active for just eight of those before the Sandpaper incident and a spell away from the game. 2019 saw him not selected however an historic Ashes performance sees him back for 2020 and the Australian player will want to prove the faith that the selectors have shown in him. In the first three weeks of the year he has been outside the top ten however in a week where he played three fixtures 6329 miles apart he bagged a century for Australia in Bengaluru and then nabbed a half century in the BBL for the Sydney Sixers. This has seen the ex-Australia captain leap six places in the overall List, the most for any player this week, and take fourth position - his highest ever placing. He also becomes the third Australian in a row to get the best Cricketer of the Week after Marnus Labuschagne's victory a fortnight ago and Travis Head's BBL inspired performance seven days ago. As Steve Smith starts to regain his mastery with the bat he is also rehabilitating his reputation in both international and domestic cricket. A season like last year's will see his position within the top ten assured - but does he dare to dream of a top 5 finish?

It's been a bit of a topsy turvy series between South Africa and England. Both team's have oscillated between looking pathetic and impressive in equal measure. Player's performances as well as captaincy decisions have been variable at best. Two players that best exemplify this are England captain Joe Root and South African spinner Keshav Maharaj. Both these players have had good weeks - but with the opposite discipline that you would expect them to showcase their talents in. Joe Root finished just outside the top five for the week and moved from joint 12th place to 9th in the overall list thanks to 197 points in the Third Test. Root is England's tenth highest all-time Test run scorer but only 13.7% of his points this week came from the bat. He is also a canny fielder but an even smaller amount - 5% - came from his prowess in the slips. Instead it was his 4-87 where the lion's share of his points came - 67.51% to be precise. In stark contrast we see a South African player selected for his skills with the ball who went on to excel with the bat. Keshav Maharaj's average sat at 12.17 before the second innings in Port Elizabeth. He then got 71 to make England work for their victory. Again this boosted the Durban born player's total for the considerably. Whilst the share of points is not as stark thanks to a five-fer earlier in the match, 27.20% of his points coming from the bat is not a bad day out for the tailender and helped him move up four places into eleventh and finish second overall for the week. Could these players turn into formidable allrounders? It seems unlikely as both performances were forced out of them by circumstance, however it is a very good string to have in your bow when the chips are down.

There have been some good times for Ben Stokes in the first 25 days of 2020. There were of course very many good days for the England all-rounder in 2019 too - however he has hit the ground running this year to a much greater extent than he did last year. Stokes made hay while the sun shone in the high to late months of Summer but was already quite far behind the chasing pack. This year he has begun strongly. Thanks to the nature of a Test match series he has been inactive every other week but debuted in Week 2 in second place overall, dropped to fifth in his active third week and has then fought back up to second spot with 210 points from the Third Test. This takes his total for 2020 to 589 - at the corresponding time in 2019 he was lagging behind with a mere 166. This is largely down to the vagaries of the cricketing calendar. This year he has played two Tests whilst in 2019 he had played two warm up games against a West Indies' President's XI - however in neither of those matches did he score the same amount of points that he has managed against a full strength South African team. If Stokes can keep up his late 2019 and early 2020 form throughout the year he will be hard to elbow out of the top five.

Week

Steve Smith- 316
Keshav Maharaj- 261
Mohammad Nabi- 233
Ben Stokes - 210
Virat Kohli - 204
Joe Root - 197
Aaron Finch- 188
Rohit Sharma - 176
Peter Handscomb - 172
Marnus Labuschagne- 141
Babar Azam - 116
Glenn Maxwell - 82
Martin Guptill- 70
Travis Head - 70
Shubman Gill - 30
David Warner - 3

Kyle Abbot - dnp
Colin Ackermann- dnp
Tom Banton - dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp

Overall

Marnus Labuschagne - 601
Ben Stokes - 589
Glenn Maxwell - 565
Steve Smith - 547
Martin Guptill - 510
Mohammad Nabi - 502
Virat Kohli - 474
Aaron Finch - 455
Joe Root - 405
David Warner - 392
Keshav Maharaj - 387
Travis Head - 319
Tom Banton - 263
Rohit Sharma - 238
Peter Handscomb - 209
Lewis Gregory - 206
Shubman Gill - 191
Babar Azam - 116

Travis Head - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Yet again an antipodean Cricketer tops our weekly List. First came Guptill, then came Labuschagne and now Travis Head earns Cricketer of the Week. In his debut week on The Cricket List, Travis Head scored ten points which is second only to Hashim Amla's score of 7 in 2018 in terms of lowest opening scores. Expectations were low. Head was then not selected for the ODI tour of India so packed up his royal blue kit and unpacked the sky blue of Adelaide and prepared for some BBL action. Over the course of the last seven days, Head has played four games of cricket and scored 109 runs - with two scores at a strike rate of 100 or over - and has also helped himself to two wickets along the way. His stand out performance came this morning against Hobart where his 79 off 40 balls saw him gain 139 of his 249 points for the week. If it were not for that match, Head would have been languishing in joint eighth for the week rather than taking top spot. As you would imagine, Head has jumped up the overall List this week. He ended last week at the very foot of the table and has now jumped seven places to just squeeze into the top ten. On this sort of performances, Head may feel aggrieved that he was not selected for the India matches. With a question mark over the middle order that has seen Starc being experimented with up the order and question marks over Alex Carey's position in the team, performances like today's may see Head become a feature in all three disciplines of the game for Australia.

And Travis Head is not the only Aussie having a rather good time of it so far in 2020. This week Four of our top five players are from the land down under whilst Glenn Maxwell and Marnus Labuschagne, who did not score huge points this week, are first and second on the overall List. Two players whose synchronicity in the middle has been mirrored on our list are David Warner and Aaron Finch. Their performance in the ODI against India was a sight to behold and the way the two players dovetailed together was signs that the pair, who have been playing together for the national side since 2013, know each other inside out. We cannot even separate them in our list this week as Warner finishes third for the week with 203 whilst Finch is in fourth with 183. They both also climb up three places in the overall table with Warner sliding into the top five for the first time ever and Finch taking tenth place. By some distance this is Warner's highest ever placing on The Cricket List as his 2018 showings were rather....hampered and he was not selected in 2019. As he shrugs off the pejorative title of being a flat track bully this really could be the year he forces his agenda.

Virat Kohli is doing the same as Virat Kohli always does in this List. Just plug away quietly oscillating between very impressive performances, influential cameos and periods of disappointment. This week was a mixture of three of these. His score of 16 in the mauling by Australia was evidently a disappointment whilst his 78 runs off 76 balls in the second ODI was an influential part of providing a spine for Shikar Dhawan and KL Rahul to build up from - however we saw nothing explosive. Kohli's most explosive batting performances are saved for lesser sides and he relies on dependability when the big boys come to town. Kohli's biggest scoring weeks in both 2018 and 2019 came from a duo of two back to back centuries against the West Indies. Many raise questions with regards to his lack of runs against the big boys. In football, one of the most stinging criticisms of a professional is that they disappear in big games. Mesut Ozil is a prime example of this; some of his most memorable performances come against Everton and Sunderland however when Manchester United, Chelsea or Manchester City come visiting he is a ghost. Is Virat Kohli the Mesut Ozil of international cricket? This week he hangs just outside the top 5 in sixth position - the exact same position as he occupies in the overall table. An inarguably talented player but always ever so slightly just off the pace of being a true legend of the game.

Week

Travis Head - 249
Martin Guptill - 213
David Warner - 203
Aaron Finch - 183
Steve Smith - 146
Virat Kohli - 144
Shubman Gill - 124
Glenn Maxwell - 110
Tom Banton - 105
Mohammad Nabi - 99
Rohit Sharma- 62
Marnus Labuschagne- 56

Kyle Abbott- dnp
Colin Ackermann - dnp
Babar Azam- dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Peter Handscomb - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp

Overall

Glenn Maxwell - 483
Marnus Labuschagne - 460
Martin Guptill - 440
David Warner - 389
Ben Stokes - 379
Virat Kohli - 270
Mohammad Nabi - 269
Tom Banton - 263
Travis Head - 259
Aaron Finch - 257
Steve Smith - 231
Joe Root - 206
Lewis Gregory - 206
Shubman Gill - 151
Keshav Maharaj - 126
Rohit Sharma - 62
Peter Handscomb - 37

Marnus Labuschagne - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Marnus Labuschagne's performance in the first innings of his Test match against New Zealand was very obviously going to make him Cricketer of the Week. Even as I was writing last week's post, it was already very clear that his 215 in the first innings was going to knock some of the early T20 leaders out the park. However his monumental first innings score was only half the tale - literally. His 59 in the second innings boosted his score and whilst his part time bowling yielded no wickets it allowed the South African born Australian to pick up 60 points for his economy. When all this is totted up it reaches a huge total of 404. As a rule of thumb, 400 is my normal barometer for the threshold between a great week and an exceptional one. In the whole of 2019 there were just six instances of players breaching the 400 point mark (Maxwell, Sharma, Harmer, Khan, Parnell and Iyer) and for Labuschagne to do so in just his first outing on the list is something very special. In fact his 404 for the week is the second highest debut Week in the history of The Cricket List; trailing Sunil Narine's 487 from 2018. The question now is whether Labuschagne can do an 'inverse Jason Roy' and be rewarded for his Test performances with a call up to the ODI side. He averaged a mere 17.57 in last year's Royal London One Day Cup with Glamorgan - however it is becoming increasingly clear that the young man is in phenomenal touch so would be worth a crack.

Ben Stokes had another one of those headline grabbing weeks this week. Stokes is regularly having to be relied on for getting England out of holes and whilst this makes great viewing and continues to build up the legend of the Durham all rounder it does rather mask the underlining issues in the England set up. His 91 vs New Zealand, that 135* at Headingley, the century against Lords, the 84* in the World Cup final are all great moments in sporting history and, dizzyingly, all came within the last nine months but are remarkable for the fact that they inspired an insipid England team to actually muster themselves to try something a little more three dimensional. A Ben Stokes-less universe is not one worth thinking about. However we do not need to worry about that because his all round prowess is firmly rooted in the English set up - and he was the true all rounder this week. From his haul of 119 runs, those three wickets to seal the game and becoming the first England fielder to take five catches in a single Test innings, Stokes didn't so much make his mark on this Test but branded his imprint into it's flesh. He slots straight into second position on the overall List, his highest ever finish to a week. England will hope not to rely so heavily on him in the next two Tests however he will be challenging for top spot in the form he is in.

We are used to seeing Glenn Maxwell near the top of both the weekly list and our overall list. This week he has dropped a place (!) and is third overall and third for the week - however his total of 262 points from two BBL games includes 142 runs with both outings including strike rates over 150 and has seen him one of two players to cling on to their top five positions alongside Martin Guptill. The frightening thing for everyone on this list is that Maxwell, the number one Cricketer on our overall list for 42 weeks in 2018, has said that after a sabbatical away from the game he feels he can come back improved. Improved! A genuinely startling proposition. He is currently second to Marcus Stoinis in terms of runs scored in this year's BBL and is also offering something with the ball with, the fifteenth lowest economy of all bowlers - arguably the highest allrounder on the list dependant on your definition of all rounders. Maxwell has three games in the next week. Stokes, who is just three points ahead of the Australian, will not have finished the third Test by next weekend whilst Labuschagne's ODI inclusion is questionable so we may see Maxwell back at number one by next week.

Week

Marnus Labuschagne- 404
Ben Stokes - 379
Glenn Maxwell - 262
Joe Root - 206
David Warner - 186
Tom Banton - 158
Lewis Gregory - 131
Virat Kohli- 126
Keshav Maharaj - 126
Steve Smith - 83
Mohammad Nabi - 72
Martin Guptill- 62
Shubman Gill - 27
Travis Head - 10
Aaron Finch - 10
Peter Handscomb - 3

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann - dnp
Babar Azam - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp


Overall

Marnus Labuschagne - 404
Ben Stokes - 379
Glenn Maxwell - 373
Martin Guptill - 227
Joe Root - 206
Lewis Gregory - 206
David Warner - 186
Mohammad Nabi - 170
Tom Banton - 158
Virat Kohli - 126
Keshav Maharaj - 126
Steve Smith - 83
Aaron Finch - 74
Peter Handscomb - 37
Shubman Gill - 27
Travis Head - 10

Martin Guptill - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Martin Guptill is an unlikely star man for the first week of 2020. Picked in this list specifically because he has gone unselected in the major tournaments of the year - he has done just what you would expect of him in a third tier T20 competition and utterly dominated with the bat. He is now the captain of Auckland and played a captain's innings on New Year's Day with a score of 83* against Canterbury before following this up yesterday with 22 against Central Districts - both achieved with strike rates in the 100s. Guptill will not play as much in 2020 as he did in 2019 and he is nowhere near the talismanic player he was in his heyday - about 2015 - but at just over 33 he is nowhere near the scrap heap just yet. What can be guaranteed is that when he does play he will score big against unrecognised bowlers at an impressive strike rate. It is a formula that we have seen before. The fact that Guptill is at something of a loose end throughout the IPL and The Hundred may work to his advantage on our list. If one of your overseas players gets injured, Marty will be on the end of the phone. Until then he will be eyeing up T10 leagues and second and third tier T20 competitions such as the MSL, the Global T20 Canada completion and the much anticipated Euro T20 Slam. Are these halcyon days for Guptill? No. Might they be profitable days? Very possibly.

Another player who will play an awful lot of franchise cricket in 2020 is Mohammad Nabi. He debuts in our overall list in third position and will cover a lot of ground, use a lot of air miles and may very well rack up a fair few wickets and runs in 2020. Currently plying his trade for Rangpur in the BPL, the Afghanistan all rounder started his year with a wicket from each of his two games this week as well as modest scores of 5 and 23 with the bat. Nabi too has something Guptillian about him. This is exemplified by his last game of the week against Sylhet. The eastern Bangladesh franchise are bottom of the table with Nabi's Rangpur just a single place above them so Nabi will be disappointed with scoring just 23 runs off them - however he did so at a strike rate of 135.29, enough to score him the extra twenty points to see him overtake his team mate Lewis Gregory and take third place for the week. There is a slight long term issue for Nabi. Whilst Guptill is likely to feature for his national team in ODIs and T20s fairly soon - Afghanistan do not have any fixtures in the diary yet until the T20 World Cup until October! Although this is obviously not going to remain the case, there are no national games on the horizon for the number one ranked T20I and number two ODI all-rounder. He really will need to fill his boots in those franchise competitions.

You can't keep him away from the top of our Overall List. This is the first week since late February 2019 that Glenn Maxwell has not been in the box seat of our rankings - but he is not too far off the pace. His Nelson score this week sees him 54 points below Guptill and primed for another move up the table as the Big Bash rumbles on for another thousand games. His two performances for the Melbourne Stars this week underline what he brings to the table in these rankings. In the first game he was the effective bowler. The wickets of Alex Hales and Usman Khawaja are prime scalps for any established bowler...but The Big Show got 'em within his first two overs. He is proving a very effective surprise opening bowler - something we saw with Lancashire in the Royal London One Day Cup last year. Then came his second game - the Derby against the Melbourne Renegades. Here he was the batsmen extraordinaire with 40 off 32 balls to arrest a bit of a slide for his team and take them to a fifth win of the season and keep them at the top of the table. This form could see him start 2020 as he ended 2019. The dominant Cricketer in the world.

Week

Martin Guptill - 165
Glenn Maxwell - 111
Mohammad Nabi - 98
Lewis Gregory - 75
Aaron Finch - 64
Peter Handscomb - 34
Tom Banton - 15

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackerman- dnp
Babar Azam - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Travis Head - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Virat Kohli - dnp
Marnus Labuschagne - dnp
Keshav Maharaj - dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Rohit Sharma- dnp
Steve Smith - dnp
Ben Stokes- dnp
David Warner - dnp

Overall

Martin Guptill - 165
Glenn Maxwell - 111
Mohammad Nabi - 98
Lewis Gregory - 75
Aaron Finch - 64
Peter Handscomb - 34
Tom Banton - 15

The Cricket List 2020 - From Abbott to Warner,

At this time of year the song asks us 'May auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?' and when it comes to The Cricket List the answer is - yes. However, this year more than most, we are bidding farewell to some of our oldest acquaintances....but first; who remains?

Retained

Virat Kohli is the first name on the Indian team sheet and the captain of the Men In Blue is retained for a third year after finishing in the top 5 for the last two years.

Simon Harmer is another name who has been an ever present on our list. Finishing first in 2018 and second in 2019; big things will be expected of the South African in 2020.

The last member of the trio of players who have featured since the start of this blog is Joe Root. The England captain finished 10th in 2018 and 5th in 2019, so his steady progress will leave many of his fans hopeful for next year.

Now we have those three elder statesmen out of the way we can turn our attention to four players who featured last year.

Shubman Gill has long been the next cab off the rank for Indian cricket and despite a poor showing in 2019 - finishing outside the top 15 - this could very well be the make or break year for the Punjab man.

The retention of Glenn Maxwell for 2020 is a no-brainer. The Big Show was supreme in 2019 and finished in first position by some distance despite a sabbatical from the game. With a return to the IPL, a T20 World Cup and his inclusion in The Hundred this year could be even bigger.

Rohit Sharma finished just outside the top 5 in 2019 but starts the new year as a regular starter in all three formats of the game - a position he has not been in for many a year. Could this be the year where he pushes himself into the echelons of Indian cricket?

2020 will not be as dramatic a year as 2019 for Ben Stokes but he will hope to improve on his position from this year. Another player who is just outside the top 5, he will be a key feature for the T20 World Cup as well as a regular feature for England.

There are also a triumvirate of Australian players who make their return to The List after a gap year in 2019.

First off is Aaron Finch, a top ten finish in 2018 was not enough to see him retained for 2019, however a return to the IPL, captaining the Northern Superchargers in The Hundred and a T20 World Cup makes him an eye-catching prospect for 2020.

Steve Smith's absence from the list last year was more of an ICC enforced gap year than for Finch however his Ashes performance in 2019 has shown that he is still a world beater. You would expect him to improve on his 23rd place finish in 2018.

Just ahead of Smith in 2018 came David Warner. When not selected in 2019, many would have expected the diminutive Aussie's time on our Lists to be over - however, despite an under-baked Ashes performance, he has proved himself enough on his return to feature this year.

New players

And now we turn to a fresh crop of debutantes to our list. Who will be the next Glenn Maxwell and who will be the next Joe Burns?

A South African Kolpak bowler that will hope to make as much of an impact on The Cricket List as his compatriot from Essex. Kyle Abbott finished second to Harmer for most wickets in 2019; can he go one better in 2020?

Perhaps a surprise inclusion on this list, Colin Ackermann has more than proved his worth for Leicestershire over the last 18 months. He has now also qualified to play for the Netherlands which will increase the amount of cricket he plays. He becomes the first Dutch player to feature in The Cricket List.

Babar Azam has been a palpable absence in our list this year. His form for Pakistan and Somerset has been marking him out as one of the brightest talents in world cricket. Expect him to challenge that top 5 in 2020.

Another Somerset player on our list for 2020, Tom Banton's T20 Blast form catapulted him into the realms of T20 superstar. Currently turning out for Brisbane in the BBL, 2020 could be a defining year for Banton. Will he become a T20 gun for hire or will he push on for England selection?

Lewis Gregory made a name for himself in 2019. A key feature of the Somerset team for many years he is now an established name in a number of T20 franchise competitions and is expected to push on for England in 2020.

Martin Guptill may seem an odd selection for a 2020 list. The 33 year old went unselected in both The Hundred and IPL auctions. This will free up the big hitting New Zealander to travel round the world and become a big hitting mercenary batsman in every T10 and T20 league that will take him before touching down in Australia for the World Cup.

With the return of the disgraced duo, Peter Handscomb is now on the periphery of the Australia set up but still has a lot to offer with the BBL, Sheffield Shield and becoming Middlesex captain all on his schedule for the coming year.

Another Aussie that has caught the eye in 2019, big things are expected of Travis Head. As well as being a regular feature in the Australia team he has signed on for Sussex for the whole of the County Championship.

Jason Holder has been the quiet hero of 2019. Now the Test captain of the West Indies, he is a force to be reckoned with in all forms of the game and with him at the helm of a resurgent West Indies under Phil Simmons 2020 could be even bigger for the Barbadian.

The last of seven Australians on the 2020 list, Marnus Labuschagne went from zero to hero in 2019 and ended the year as the top scoring Test batsman. He has repaid the faith that Glamorgan showed in him by resigning for next season. Can he force his agenda and become a World Class Test batsman in 2020?

There are four South Africans that feature in out List this year, however Keshav Maharaj is the only one that is still turning out for his national team. He will also be a regular feature for Yorkshire this year after taking 38 wickets in 5 matches in 2019.

Mohammad Nabi's T20 pedigree has been slowly developing for a number of years now but any T20 franchise competition that doesn't boast the big hitting, wicket taking player isn't worth it's salt. Will be a big danger in Australia.

Released Players 

The Cricket List 3.0 has something of a gear change. Gone is the focus on the 50 over game with more of a T20 vibe to it this year - also gone are a number of old favourites.

Jeetan Patel has been something of a cult favourite of The Cricket List since it started. Finishing in third for two years in a row, his retirement for Wellington and his abdication as captain of Warwickshire point to the New Zealand veteran winding down to retirement to pursue a career in coaching that he has already begun as England's spin coach.

We bid farewell to another three veterans of the last two iterations of The Cricket List in the form of Jos Buttler, Rashid Khan and Kane Williamson. All three of these players' form in 2019 have been a disappointment with Buttler and Williamson finishing outside the top 10 and Rashid just scraping in to the Top Ten. It is not out of the question that the trio will return in further Lists but for now we bid them adieu. I have long been critical of the dip in form of Rashid and sincerely hope we see him back again lest he turn into another Mustafizur Rahman.

The 2019 list had a slew of English talent that we have discarded now the World Cup has been successfully negotiated. Jonny Bairstow and Jack Leach join Buttler on the scrap heap, taking the total of England players on our list from five to two.

We also have replaced a number of County Championship bowlers who we thought could give Simon Harmer a run for his money. Mohammad Abbas, Morne Morkel, Duanne Olivier and Wayne Parnell all finished outside the top 10 and join Callum Ferguson as County Championship rejects. Abdur Razzak was an innovative selection to try and challenge Harmer - one that did not prove fruitful.

Shakib Al Hasan, Joe Burns, Shai Hope, Shreyas Iyer and  Kuldeep Yadav round off the international players who do not get a berth in 2020.