Keshav Maharaj - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Besides the ever growing gap between Stokes and the chasing field, the top five has shifted Week to Week over the first couple of months of 2020. Stokes has now been number one on the overall list for four weeks. In his first week at top spot he had a huge lead on second place Marnus Labuschagne, in Week two and three Martin Guptill was pushing him for top spot and this week a player has come out of nowhere to challenge the England all-rounder. Keshav Maharaj is a known prospect to Stokes - and in their most recent on-field battle the South African was rather found out - however Maharaj looks something of an unstoppable force in the Momentum One Day Cup. This week he jumped from 6th place to second off the back of a solitary game where the Dolphins player bagged a half century and a Fourier against the Cape Cobras - a handy 200 points to see him surge up the table once again. At the start of February, Maharaj was in 12th position but three weeks of improvement up the table have seen him rise to 148 points of the top spot. So far in this tournament he has taken 11 wickets in 5 matches, second only to Thando Ntini who has just one more despite playing two more games. He is also coupling this with an average of over 50 with the bat. Maharaj really isn't playing games this year and is following in the footsteps of Glenn Maxwell who got to top spot last year with impressive all round performance. Stokes will not play for England again for four weeks and in that time Maharaj's Dolphins will have played at least three times. It is a very real possibility that the South African could take top spot as soon as next week - or could he be the third challenger to fade away in the style of Guptill and Labuschagne?

Now we have seen a return to long form cricket in Australia, we have seen some of our less prolific Aussies come to the fore again. The highest score from an Australian this week did not come from their T20 mauling of South Africa but instead from the more prosaic match up between South and Western Australia. Travis Head has had a mixed year; after a huge score at the back end of 2019 his performances have been variable in 2020. Never higher than 9th on the overall list, he slid as far down the league as 14th last week before 95 runs split across two innings against Western Australia saw him acquire 105 points for the week and finish fifth on the weekly list. This could easily have been at least 20 points more if he had inched over the half century threshold at least once - falling short by four runs in the first innings and a solitary run in the second. Unlucky possibly but luck has certainly been on his side already this year. This week's score is not his highest for 2020 as Head won Cricketer of the Week in Week 5 for four games in the BBL - edging out Matin Guptill thanks to sheer weight of games played. Where he gained points that week he has potentially lost some this. What is impressive is the versatility of Head; finishing in the top five for the Week twice - once for T20 cricket and once for the longest form. There is a belief that he is the sort of player that could plug a gap in the middle order of Australia's ODI side - if that comes to pass he could be a top ten prospect very easily.

Due to this being a T20 World Cup year, our list has had more of a short form focus this year than in previous. This has seen far greater number of bodies turning out for PSL franchises than we have ever had before. Peshawar is likely to be our principle focus over the next month or so as both Tom Banton and Lewis Gregory are turning out for the North-Western Pakistan franchise, however this week Banton scored a mere 13 runs and an injury picked up with the England Lions has stopped Gregory from making his debut. Instead our focus is on one of Pakistan's favourite sons, Babar Azam. Due to lack of game time Azam has been propping up the table and even his century against Bangladesh only saw him jump up a solitary spot. He will be hoping to use the PSL as a spring board up the table and has started the competition brightly with 78 for Karachi against Peshawar. This has seen him gain another place on the overall list. As it stands he is in 16th place, with a disappointing looking Tom Banton 5 points ahead of him and an inactive Rohit Sharma 64 points ahead. Another couple of decent performances will catapult Azam closer to where he should be - a firm top ten prospect.

Week

Keshav Maharaj- 200
Babar Azam - 118
Jason Holder - 112
Ben Stokes- 112
Travis Head - 105
Lewis Gregory - 85
Aaron Finch - 82
Peter Handscomb-71
Steve Smith- 65
Marnus Labuschagne- 36
Tom Banton - 23
David Warner - 14
Shubman Gill - 8
Martin Guptill- 0
Virat Kohli - 0

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp

Overall

Ben Stokes - 1062
Keshav Maharaj - 914
Martin Guptill - 887
Joe Root - 829
Shubman Gill - 752
Virat Kohli - 729
Steve Smith - 727
Marnus Labuschagne - 685
Glenn Maxwell - 650
Aaron Finch - 640
Mohammad Nabi - 590
Travis Head - 563
Lewis Gregory - 551
Rohit Sharma - 471
Tom Banton - 412
Babar Azam - 407
David Warner - 406
Peter Handscomb - 310
Jason Holder- 112