Back in the pre-Lockdown era of cricket, it would have been unthinkable for a player to win Cricketer of the Week three times in a row. If it was going to happen, your pre-Lockdown money would have been on Simon Harmer. Such is the relentless march of the County Championship season that it is more likely to string together top drawer performances . Yet in the world we find ourselves in where we have Test match after Test match stretching out ahead of us. In this world, Ben Stokes has had an opportunity of playing with County Championship-style regularity. And my god has he taken advantage. You may say that Stokes has only achieved this because he is the only show in town and there's no one to challenge him for points. This is not the case. The average score for Cricketer of the Week so far in 2020 is 246.85 points - he surpassed that both this week and last. This week he almost doubled it. His 464 points this week is the highest total of 2020 - overtaking Marnus Labuschagne's double ton against New Zealand. In fact you have to go to September of 2019 to see a score even remotely close to Stokes'. Rashid Khan got one more point for his 75 runs and eleven wickets for Afghanistan against Bangladesh. Stokes now has an eye-watering gap on second place - and still had has 4 more Tests to play this Summer. He may be the only show in town - but he's worth the price of admission alone.
The flip side of the Stokes effect is that other players are streaking up the table with below average performances. Jason Holder's form with the bat has been poor for some while but in this Test his bowling seemed awry. His economy rate of 8.25 from the smash and grab second England innings was the highest of any bowler in those 19 overs. Holder is no inexperienced newbie at shorter form cricket. He should know how to bowl in such situations. His weekly total of 117 is boosted by 30 points from catches so even that lowly total flatters to deceive. This being said, Holder has been rewarded by another jump of three places up the list. This time he shoulders Virat Kohli, Lewis Gregory and David Warner out the way to make the top ten for the first time. Quite the escape job from the player who only got off the bottom of the List the week before cricket shut down. Joe Root was also disappointing this week. The last time he played, he bagged Cricketer of the Week for 208 points in a warm-up game against a Sri Lanka Cricket XI. Root always scores in warm up games and then fades away in the real thing. Of the four times that Root has topped the weekly list, only twice has it been in a full England international and only one of those in a Test match. 55 points is the lowest score he has had for an active week in 2020. You have to go back to a warm up game against New Zealand A last year for him to have score any lower. The returning England captain will be hoping for better - especially as he is now just 12 points off third placed Keshav Maharaj.
Babar Azam's men in green are the next opponents looming on the horizon for England. The large squad played a full blooded game in Derbyshire where no one held back. This was characterised by Abid Ali having to be taken to hospital for an MRI scan. One of the more impressive performances came from Babar himself. Despite his Team White losing, he bounced back from a disappointing first innings score of 12 to get 58 in the second dig. He also got 30 economy points for four overs of bowling. A rare sight indeed. Azam's progression up the table has been similar to Holder's. Disappointing in the first third of the year, some decent performances in the PSL took him from being a mid-teen player to outside the top ten. His 130 points this week brings him over the 1000 point mark and into sixth place. In so doing, he overtakes Labuschagne, Aaron Finch and Travis Head. Despite not playing a single ball it has been a bad week for the Australians on our List. Out of the seven players that have moved down, five have been Aussies. With another intra-squad game still in the bank, the England v Pakistan Test series could see all three competing players on our list within the top 5.
The flip side of the Stokes effect is that other players are streaking up the table with below average performances. Jason Holder's form with the bat has been poor for some while but in this Test his bowling seemed awry. His economy rate of 8.25 from the smash and grab second England innings was the highest of any bowler in those 19 overs. Holder is no inexperienced newbie at shorter form cricket. He should know how to bowl in such situations. His weekly total of 117 is boosted by 30 points from catches so even that lowly total flatters to deceive. This being said, Holder has been rewarded by another jump of three places up the list. This time he shoulders Virat Kohli, Lewis Gregory and David Warner out the way to make the top ten for the first time. Quite the escape job from the player who only got off the bottom of the List the week before cricket shut down. Joe Root was also disappointing this week. The last time he played, he bagged Cricketer of the Week for 208 points in a warm-up game against a Sri Lanka Cricket XI. Root always scores in warm up games and then fades away in the real thing. Of the four times that Root has topped the weekly list, only twice has it been in a full England international and only one of those in a Test match. 55 points is the lowest score he has had for an active week in 2020. You have to go back to a warm up game against New Zealand A last year for him to have score any lower. The returning England captain will be hoping for better - especially as he is now just 12 points off third placed Keshav Maharaj.
Babar Azam's men in green are the next opponents looming on the horizon for England. The large squad played a full blooded game in Derbyshire where no one held back. This was characterised by Abid Ali having to be taken to hospital for an MRI scan. One of the more impressive performances came from Babar himself. Despite his Team White losing, he bounced back from a disappointing first innings score of 12 to get 58 in the second dig. He also got 30 economy points for four overs of bowling. A rare sight indeed. Azam's progression up the table has been similar to Holder's. Disappointing in the first third of the year, some decent performances in the PSL took him from being a mid-teen player to outside the top ten. His 130 points this week brings him over the 1000 point mark and into sixth place. In so doing, he overtakes Labuschagne, Aaron Finch and Travis Head. Despite not playing a single ball it has been a bad week for the Australians on our List. Out of the seven players that have moved down, five have been Aussies. With another intra-squad game still in the bank, the England v Pakistan Test series could see all three competing players on our list within the top 5.
Week
Ben Stokes - 464
Babar Azam - 130
Jason Holder - 117
Joe Root- 55
Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann - dnp
Tom Banton - dnp
Aaron Finch - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Virat Kohli- dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Rohit Sharma- dnp
Steve Smith - dnp
David Warner - dnp
Overall
Ben Stokes - 2085
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Joe Root - 1164
Steve Smith - 1109
Babar Azam - 1004
Marnus Labuschagne - 1000
Aaron Finch - 980
Travis Head - 901
Jason Holder- 891
David Warner - 821
Lewis Gregory - 819
Virat Kohli - 787
Shubman Gill - 752
Mohammad Nabi - 701
Glenn Maxwell - 650
Tom Banton - 603
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 383
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