The Ben Stokes roadshow continues to run on as the controversy shrouded redhead bumps from moment to moment drawing headlines and match winning performances in equal measure. This week the casual observer of our fine sport would have noted Stokes for his profanity laden response to provocation from a bespectacled South African - however, as ever, there was much more to it than that. Stokes is developing a natural affinity to shelve whatever else is going on in his private life - be it biased media reports, family concerns or accolades - and win matches. The final Test in the South African series was another Stokes special. No pyrotechnics this time. 30 runs across both innings and a pair of pairs with the ball - but all round contributions from the Durham man. He scored points all around the disciplines - 22.73% with the bat, 59.09% with the ball and 18.18% in the field. Yet again he showed his ability to switch through the gears with his batting performance when needed. His second innings 28 from 24 balls was not Headingley-esque but hinted at the formula that Silverwood's England have been flirting with; a fully rounded Test team who can draw upon their experience in all formats of the game when the match calls for it - and who better to exemplify that ethos than Stokes? His list topping performance this week is his fourth overall but this is the first time that he has ever taken the top spot of the Overall List. He has a comfortable 160 point lead over Marnus Labuschagne. Stokes has six more games in South Africa whilst Labuschagne's Brisbane are now out of the BBL. A chance for Stokes to really force his agenda and his lead in 2020.
You can split the Australians in our list into two categories. One category is long in the tooth established veterans such as Messrs. Finch, Smith and Warner; the other is more peripheral figures who are hoping to force their way into the Australian cricketing fraternity for the next decade. Marnus Labuschagne has been leading this list having never been out of the top two since his debut in Week 2 - however there is another figure who has rather more quietly been impressing. Travis Head is in tenth position on the overall list but has finished third this week after taking top spot two weeks ago. He started the year poorly with just 10 runs in the last Test between Australia and New Zealand however scored 142 runs in the last Test in 2019. Whilst his international brethren were in India, Head stayed behind and put his efforts behind Adelaide's late BBL push - and was instrumental in his team losing just three of their last 8 games. You can also see how much Adelaide relied on their wicket keeper batsman. When Head failed they did too. But those failures did not happen too often; 8 against Brisbane and 5 against Melbourne Stars were his two lowest scores in this run of games with his next lowest being 22 against the Melbourne Renegades. Across the final eight games of the BBL season, Head averaged 28.5 - including the second game against Brisbane where he was not asked to bat thanks to the dominance of Phil Salt and Jake Weatherald. Despite this success Head has not been able to get any higher than ninth position on the overall List - a return to longer form cricket with South Australia in the Sheffield Shield may redress this.
Martin Guptill's high performance on our overall List cannot continue much longer can it? Every year we have been keeping track of the top Cricketers in the world there has always been an early front runner that flew out of the blocks and didn't seem to tire for months and months. In 2018 it was JP Duminy who was in the top five for the first three months before disappearing and finishing outside the top ten. Last year it was Shakib Al Hasan who refused to go away for a long period of time - despite how much we wanted him to when he brought the game into disrepute. This year it is Guptill. There has been a lot of opportunities for him to fade away but he keeps on moving back up the table. Guptill finished first in Week One before falling back to fourth in Week Two as the Super Smash competition came to an end. You would expect the veteran New Zealander to exploit the green bowling of Kiwi newbies in that particular competition but surely that's enough? He then got 213 in Week Three and moved back into third. But again....domestic cricket! Who cares? Next up for Guppy was India. He started with a sanguine 30 and back down to fifth again - "he's starting to be found out by world class bowlers" you may have thought. However he followed this up by two other scores in the thirties this week and finishes third for the week and is third overall yet again! What next for Guptill? Back to domestic cricket with Auckland and those green bowlers again. Can Guptill keep this up? I wouldn't put it past him.
Week
Ben Stokes - 220
Joe Root - 167
Travis Head- 139
Rohit Sharma - 133
Martin Guptill- 118
Aaron Finch - 113
Virat Kohli- 110
Mohammad Nabi- 88
Steve Smith - 54
Marnus Labuschagne - 48
Glenn Maxwell - 36
Tom Banton - 13
Peter Handscomb- 4
Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann- dnp
Babar Azam - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Jason Holder- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
David Warner - dnp
Overall
Ben Stokes - 809
Marnus Labuschagne - 649
Martin Guptill - 628
Steve Smith - 601
Glenn Maxwell - 601
Mohammad Nabi - 590
Virat Kohli - 584
Joe Root - 572
Aaron Finch - 558
Travis Head - 458
David Warner - 392
Keshav Maharaj - 387
Rohit Sharma - 371
Tom Banton - 276
Peter Handscomb - 213
Lewis Gregory - 206
Shubman Gill - 191
Babar Azam - 116
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