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
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