Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

We could wax lyrical for ten thousand words about the skills of Simon Harmer and it would still not do him justice. For a record stretching eighteenth week the South African claims the Cricketer of the Week honours - and does so playing considerably fewer games than most others on the list. With the return of T20 cricket and the fact that I held back this post until the end of the Test match, we have seen much more cricket played over the course of the last week. Simon Harmer is just one of three players to have played just one four day game in that time. The other two were Tom Banton and Lewis Gregory who scored 304 and 123 fewer points than he did. We will hear more from them later. Yet again Harmer delivered a 360 degree bowling and fielding performance with a full allocation of sixty points for economy and a bonus of  fifty points from catches in the field. Harmer has really put himself back in the mix in this truncated Summer. His 327 points sees him jump from 16th place to 8th - a nosebleed inducing ascent. This all does come with a slight caveat. Despite his individual success, weather has conspired against Essex this week meaning their game against Hampshire was a draw. This not only stopped Harmer from achieving even more but potentially sees them having to fight to reach the final of the Bob Willis Trophy. Harmer may just have one more four day match left this year! On top of this, Essex are now heading into the T20 Blast. The upside of this is a barrage of more frequent games but the downside is that Harmer does less well in the shorter format. This may seem anomalous when you consider that his previous high score before last week's 14 wicket haul came in that memorable T20 finals weekend - however this is very much the outlier. In the group stages both Essex and Harmer looked distinctly average and the South African carried this (lack of form) into the Msanzi Super League. If he looks over his shoulder he sees the likes of Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Aaron Finch just starting their Summers. Could we potentially see Harmer outside the top ten? It will make 2020 an even weirder year than it already is. 

Harmer is not the only player that has soared up the Overall List this week. Mohammad Nabi has moved up seven places thanks to four games for St Lucia whilst Jason Holder moves into third place overall for the same amount of game for Barbados. Whilst Hilder has grabbed the headlines slightly more with some big hitting innings, it is Nabi who leads him out in terms of points scored this week. The reason for this is largely consistency in bowling. Holder only got 30 points for economy across all four games. This pales in comparison to Nabi who got 60 across just three games. Such is Nabi's consistency that over the last three games he has got figures of 4.75 and then 4.25 twice. Another area where Nabi has contributed in the field where he has had a catch in each of his four matches. With the bat in hand, however, Holder is in control. Whilst he only has 11 more runs than his Afghan compatriot, his strike rates are through the roof - most notably in his 27 off 12 balls against Nabi's St Lucia. There are still plenty more games in this competition and it will be very interesting to see how these two all rounders measure up when the tournament is done and dusted. 

What of Tom Banton and Lewis Gregory who we mentioned earlier? They were the pair who, like Simon Harmer, only played a solitary Bob Willis Trophy match before being called up on ODI duty. The fates of the two cidermen have been pretty divergent in that time. Returning from injury to face Warwickshire, Gregory performed tidily. Match figures of 5-80 with a pretty economy has seen him move up to seventh place - his highest position since week 2 where everything is a bit fuzzy anyway. Seventh place, ahead of the likes of Steve Smith and Virat Kohli, is very flattering for Gregory. In a normal year it would seem very unlikely that he would hold such an exalted position - however if he played as he did last week he wouldn't be far off. On the other side of the coin, his teammate Banton had another torrid week with the bat. Last week he got 18 and 2 against Northamptonshire and got the lowest points of any active player on the list. This week he got 13 against Warwickshire and ended with the lowest points of any active player on the list. Since lockdown eased Banton has played nine innings in all formats of the game - he has scored over 50 in two of those innings and under 18 in the other seven. This is not good enough from England's wunderkind. Barton's lack of progress is rather splendidly symbolised in the list. He is the only player to have scored points since lockdown and moved backwards in the table - moving from 12th to 13th. Banton needs to redress his issues quicksharp.  

 Week

Simon Harmer - 337

Mohammad Nabi- 300 

Jason Holder - 271

Colin Ackermann- 264

Lewis Gregory - 204

Joe Root-  109

Babar Azam - 94

Tom Banton - 23

Kyle Abbott - dnp 

Aaron Finch - dnp 

Shubman Gill - dnp 

Martin Guptill- dnp 

Peter Handscomb - dnp 

Virat Kohli- dnp 

Marnus Labuschagne- dnp 

Keshav Maharaj- dnp 

Glenn Maxwell - dnp 

Rohit Sharma- dnp 

Steve Smith - dnp 

Ben Stokes - dnp

David Warner - dnp 

Overall 

Ben Stokes - 2204

Joe Root - 1548

Jason Holder- 1340

Babar Azam - 1300

Martin Guptill - 1243

Keshav Maharaj - 1176

Lewis Gregory - 1142

Simon Harmer - 1044

Steve Smith - 1109

Mohammad Nabi - 1001

Marnus Labuschagne - 1000

Aaron Finch - 980

Tom Banton - 910

Travis Head - 901

David Warner - 821

Virat Kohli - 787

Shubman Gill - 752

Colin Ackermann  -685

Glenn Maxwell - 650

Rohit Sharma - 471

Peter Handscomb - 383

Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Next to death and taxes in the list of unavoidable things is huge hauls of wickets from Simon Harmer. And when I say huge I mean HUGE. In the second round of the Bob Willis Trophy, Harmer took 14 wickets. This is the third time he has done this in his four years as an Essex player. What is more he did it with an abductor strain that was meant to rule him out for three weeks. The man is a machine- and is also an ever present contender on our list. Except for the fact that he has not been present since his disappointing Mzansi Super League last November. The Surrey game shows he is more than ready to surge back into action though. And surge he has. His 453 points is the fifth highest weekly total since we refurbished the point scoring system at the start of 2019. It is also the second highest score of the year after Stokes' Second Test heroics against the West Indies. It has seen Harmer overtake, not only Colin Ackermann, but also Rohit Sharma, Glenn Maxwell and Mohammed Nabi on the Overall List. To put this into context, in two weeks he has scored more points than:

Rohit Sharma's 4 active weeks in Australia and New Zealand.
Glenn Maxwell's 6 active weeks for the back half of the BBL.
Mohammad Nabi's 7 active weeks for the BBL and the series against Ireland.

And that doesn't even sound surprising. Harmer is a legend in these lists and this Cricketer of the Week accolade takes him to 16. That is double the amount of second placed Rashid Khan. What odds that he will extend that even further by the time the English 'summer' is out?

We had an absolute thriller at Old Trafford and then have been let down by the weather at the Ageas Bowl. One of the things that the precipitation has robbed us of is another sight of Babar Azam at his best. In the first innings he looked good for his 47 runs....but has he been able to show off his potential as one of the big boys in world cricket? I'd argue not yet. As we stand, he has been the most influential of the three players to feature in the series. Due to Ben Stokes' withdrawal from the rest of the series, he comes to rest on 99 for the series. Whilst this is a disappointment, his score of 2204 for the year is 765 points clear of second place. Stokes is likely to be untouchable for the foreseeable. That leaves us with Joe Root as the only rival to the Lahore born player. With a Test left in the series, Azam has 26 more points than Root . The England captain's score of 9 was very much hampered by the weather this week and we know he has more in his tank. He still has the overall beating of Azam as he sits in second place - 227 clear of the Pakistani. Azam's score of 47 points this week was enough to see him move up another place and overtake Keshav Maharaj into fourth place. Next up for him is Martin Guptill. Just 31 points stands between the two batsmen. You'd imagine that Azam will easily slide in behind Stokes and Root before the end of the Test series.

As I calculate these score, it is normal to see two players vying for Cricketer of the Week - however of late the gulfs have been huge. Pre-lockdown it would be very rare to see a gap of more than 100 between first and second place. On average it has happened one in every ten weeks, with an average gap of 52.5 since we changed the scoring rules in 2019. Since the return to cricket we have seen it happen four times in seven weeks. There was a 152 points gap between Jason Holder and Babar Azam, a 117 point divide between Stokes and Holder the next week and a massive 334 point gap between Stokes and Azam. This week the gap between Harmer and Ackermann is a huge 369 - the highest we have seen since the points update. Of course, this is down the fact that there a fewer Cricketers competing in fewer places. All five of our active players were playing in England. England is wet. If there is one player who can avoid a downpour they will steak away. Usually, however, their will be a Southern Hemisphere Cricketer to challenge them and balance out their streak. But not of late. This is going to change soon as we are starting to have the promise of more cricket round the corner. The CPL begins today with more points on the cards for Holder and Mohammad Nabi. Our first full of Aussies have released their itinerary for a busy late (or early for them) Summer of cricket. New Zealand have announced that the West Indies, Pakistan, Australia and Bangladesh will all visit their little haven over their Summer. More competitions means more competition. And that's what we all want. It's hard to predict but we will be up to 8 players participating next week. And it will only improve from there.

Week

Simon Harmer - 453
Colin Ackermann- 84
Babar Azam - 47
Tom Banton - 20
Joe Root- 9

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Aaron Finch - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Virat Kohli- dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Rohit Sharma- dnp
Steve Smith - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp
David Warner - dnp

Overall

Ben Stokes - 2204
Joe Root - 1439
Martin Guptill - 1243
Babar Azam - 1212
Keshav Maharaj - 1176

Steve Smith - 1109
Jason Holder- 1069
Marnus Labuschagne - 1000
Aaron Finch - 980
Lewis Gregory - 938
Travis Head - 901
Tom Banton - 887
David Warner - 821
Virat Kohli - 787
Shubman Gill - 752
Simon Harmer - 702
Mohammad Nabi - 701
Glenn Maxwell - 650
Rohit Sharma - 471
Colin Ackermann -421
Peter Handscomb - 383

Colin Ackermann - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

The world has reverted back to normality. Nothing screams status quo more than County Championship teams marching out for a day's toil. It exposes the parochial underbelly of our game whilst also providing blinding performances. This week we spotlight two South African Kolpak players; one a returning champion of our List, the other making his bow. It is the newbie who runs out Cricketer of the Week in his debut week. Colin Ackermann had his leadership skills put to the Test in the opening fixture of the Bob Willis Trophy. After falling six runs short of a century in the first innings, Ackermann's side had under a session left on Day Four with a target of 150. This saw Leicestershire turn the game into a T20 knockabout. This was something the new captain felt very comfortable with. His 73 from 41 balls was a match winning knock for the George born all-rounder. It is only the second time we have seen a player score 30 bonus points for Strike Rate in a County game. Wayne Parnell achieved a similar feat in similar circumstances last August for Worcestershire. Ackermann's haul of 337 points is the fourth highest total of the year and saves him the indignity of ever having the bottom spot. That dubious honour goes to Simon Harmer - a position he is not familiar with. The Essex man was the list topper in year one and finished 2019 in second spot. With these two Kolpaks having at least another four games in this tournament, we should expect to see them fly up the table over the next month.

How definitely can we say that one decent innings can change a career? We are replete with such Sliding Doors moments in sport and had two such incidents in the last week. Jos Buttler, a feature on our List for the last two year, has bought himself more time in the England set up with his knock against Pakistan. In the shorter form of the game, Tom Banton may have done the selfsame thing against Ireland. There is a real force of will behind Banton in the English game. I can't think of a player in recent history that the England setup have been so staunchly set on making it. Banton's name must be mud at Dawid Malan's house. Is this faith starting to pay off though? Across the five games - both warm-up and ODI - he has averaged 17.2 - this includes the game where he got three runs batting for both sides. The final ODI score of 58, whilst very much third fiddle on the night was a promising reminder of his ability.
That performance was by far the most competent he has looked in 2020. This being said, his 98 points was the lowest of the six active players from this week. After making a name for himself in last year's T20 Blast, he looked underwhelming in the BBL and the PSL. He now joins up with Somerset for the Bob Willis Trophy where both he and the powers that be, hope he keeps his foot on the pedal. He moves up to 12th on the overall list and overtakes the Sleeping giants of David Warner and Virat Kohli.

Not to diminish the achievements of the newest member of our top five...but Babar Azam rather underwhelmed for Pakistan in the First Test. Huge things were expected of the Pakistani superstar and things looked good on the first day. Azam had the world coo-ing with delight at his skilfully executed 69. He was one of the best players in the world! Who was he pushing out of the batting top four? Was he better than a Root? Was he better than Smith? The world was being smashed by his willow. Then on Day Two he was out without getting a run and then got five in the second innings. Azam is an outstanding player and he has just displaced Smith in our top five on the List. However he needs to continue to score big and score consistently to be one of the world's best. In that respect I would bracket him with Root. Undoubtedly a great talent but slightly too flighty right now to speak of him in such exulted terms. He does have the highest average of any player in the top ten most runs in the World Test Championship, so runs are unlikely to be eluded for too long. His 86.12 is slightly better than fellow List member Marnus Labuschagne's 83.26. It is guaranteed that the Lahorian will continue to move up our List. He is now 172 points behind Keshav Maharaj and 229 off Martin Guptill. It is very likely he will be in our top three before the end of this series.

Week

Colin Ackermann- 337
Simon Harmer - 249
Joe Root- 109
Babar Azam - 104
Ben Stokes - 99
Tom Banton - 98

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Aaron Finch - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb - dnp
Jason Holder - 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 - 2204
Joe Root - 1430
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Babar Azam - 1165
Steve Smith - 1109
Jason Holder- 1069
Marnus Labuschagne - 1000
Aaron Finch - 980
Lewis Gregory - 938
Travis Head - 901
Tom Banton - 867
David Warner - 821
Virat Kohli - 787
Shubman Gill - 752
Mohammad Nabi - 701
Glenn Maxwell - 650
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 383
Colin Ackermann - -337
Simon Harmer - 249

Jason Holder - The Best Cricketer of the Week

How fitting it is that the man who had the most to lose in the West Indies' tour of England ends with Cricketer of the Week. Holder did not need to be as receptive as he was to call to arms from his board. A smattering of high profile West Indian names opted out. If he had joined them it would have been a fait accompli for the series and, one feels, for his board. But he made the right choice and has got his reward. His weekly haul of 178 is the 6th lowest since the readjustment of our points system at the start of 2019. Despite this you feel like he was rather due his second Cricketer of the Week title. At the end of the First Test, Holder had 259 points for, what transpired to be, his best performance of the series. It was only the indomitable Ben Stokes that stopped the Barbadian from getting top spot. Because we are living in an age of precious little cricket some very low scores topping our weekly lists. Three of our lowest scores have all come in the Corona era and Holder slides in at 6th lowest. This is not to denigrate his achievements. His form in the Third Test was much improved on the Second. His 68 second innings runs offered the Windies a sliver of hope - however it was merely a sliver. Personally, Holder has shot up the table during this series - the steepest part of his climb was this week. The final week before lockdown saw Holder move off bottom spot for the first time since his debut. From there he progressed slowly and steadily up to his current spot in 6th. This week he overtook Marnus Labuschagne, Aaron Finch, Travis Head and (more impressively) Babar Azam. There is now two weeks of inactivity for Holder before the beginning of the CPL. With Azam the next man to face Stokes and Joe Root, he is unlikely to stay there for much longer. When he does play again he will be jostling for a top five place again - it all depends on how much ground is lost in that time.

It was a week of reversed fortune for Stokes and Root. Stokes, who has been so monumental since the cessation of cricket, got a mere 20 points. On the other side of the coin, Root, who looked under baked in the Second Test got the third highest score of the Week. This saw the Yorkshireman jump two places on the list to make it an English one-two at the top of the list. I often criticise Root for a lack of consistency in his performances. The allegation I lay at his door is that he disappears in big games. But how dependable are our Englishmen? Over the last three years we have had eight English players in our Lists. Root has been with us for all three years whilst Stokes is midway through his second year. Jos Buttler had two complete years and Jofra Archer, Jack Leach and Jonny Bairstow had one year. The fairest way to judge their reliability is their average points scored per active week. When the numbers are crunched Joe Root sits just above average with 142.14 points per weeks played. Just as in this year's overall list, he trails Ben Stokes (178.75) with Jofra Archer in second (157). There are caveats galore to these figures. Stokes had a season in the IPL whilst Archer was on our List before he was a Test player meaning he could play the T20 circuit. What it does show is that Root is comfortably comfortable. He'll score what you expect of him about a third of the time, over exceed about a third of the time and fail over a third of the time. He's even Mr Dependable in terms of Cricketers of The Week: one in 2018, two in 2019, one this year. Ploughing away in a typically English manner. Below Root sits Jack Leach averaging 123.71 points per active week. In fifth and sixth are Jonny Bairstow with 119.8 and Jos Buttler 117.83. To be worth your place in this list, and in a team, averaging three figures every week is the expectation. We then turn to the two gentlemen who, thus far, average below that.


It is a double edged sword for Banton and Gregory that they are ton the cusp of the set up when cricket is at such a premium. They are being forced into the limelight at a time when they are rusty. If they do fail, there are fewer avenues for them to get their eye in. The other side of the coin is that if you play your cards right you can get a debut ahead of more established players and throw your hat in the ring. Banton has played his cards wrong and his hat is very much on his head. The Somerset wunderkind got the second highest points this week. This sounds decent until you consider he batted five times in four games of cricket. Such is the desperation for Banton to do well that, on getting out for a duck for Team Moeen he was allowed to bat again for the 'opposition'. He then preceded to get 3. Banton has only had 11 active weeks of cricket this year but averages a mere 69.91 per week. If you remove this busy week from the reckoning, it is an even more dire average of 60.3 - just under half Jonny Bairstow's average. With the final ODI v Ireland tomorrow, Banton needs to get a score orhe could be discarded. Despite his general lack of form, his busy diary has boosted him up a fair few places this week. He overleaps Shubman Gill, Mohammad Nabi and Glenn Maxwell into 14th.

Week

Jason Holder - 178
Tom Banton - 166
Joe Root- 155
Lewis Gregory - 119
Babar Azam - 57
Ben Stokes - 20



Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann - 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 - 2105
Joe Root - 1314
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Steve Smith - 1109
Jason Holder- 1069
Babar Azam - 1061
Marnus Labuschagne - 1000
Aaron Finch - 980
Lewis Gregory - 938
Travis Head - 901
David Warner - 821
Virat Kohli - 787
Tom Banton - 769
Shubman Gill - 752
Mohammad Nabi - 701
Glenn Maxwell - 650
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 383