Colin Ackermann - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

That the IPL started this week is going to be superfluous to this week's post. This is not due to the snobbish high-minded attitude I have seen from many on social media. Instead it is because some of the biggest movers up the list can are found in the T20 Blast this week. The best performance of any player over the last 7 days came not in the sweltering heat of Dubai but instead under the watery sunshine of Manchester. At the start of last Sunday, Leicestershire didn't stand much of a chance of progressing. They needed to beat Lancashire and hope that other results would fall in their favour. Halfway through the Lancashire innings it looked a fait accompli as Alex Davies and Steven Croft were in full control. That was when Ackermann took charge. Ackermann's 2020 campaign will not be as well remembered as last year's where he claimed a record seven wickets against Warwickshire however he has still looked comfortable. In comparison to his fellow All Rounder Simon Harmer he scored 114 more runs at a better average strike rate. With the ball he gained exactly the same points for his economy rate and was only one wicket behind the Essex player. Despite playing two fewer games, the Leicestershire captain scored 65 points more. His effect was never felt more than in the 16th over where he claimed three wickets in four balls to turn the game on it's head. He finished with figures of 3-18 to go alongside his 28 ball 29 with the bat. Ironically it was the team that he humiliated last year, Warwickshire, who Leicestershire pipped to the post for qualification. Ackermann averages 75.57 points per game played and has at least one further game in the competition. If he achieves at least his average score against Nottinghamshire he will move up two places and into the top ten. The issue is that, like Simon Harmer, this is seemingly his last Cricket of the year. The Saffer needs to make hay while the sun shines as the clouds are drawing in.

Joe Root's return was a belated boost for Yorkshire's unsuccessful Blast campaign. The England Test captain has been determined to prove his point to the England selectors that he still has a role in the shortest form of the game. Anyone that has come up against the White Rose whilst he was playing would struggle to disagree. Root has the third highest average for runs in the competition with 69.5 across his five games and has also chipped in with some wickets to boost his score. Whilst he did not help to pull Yorkshire's hopes out the fire he has pushed his agenda for England. As well as this he has also muscled his way to the top of our overall list. Thus ends Ben Stokes 10 week reign at the top of the list. When Stokes signed off from England duty to be with his father who was in ill health, the gap between himself and Root was 774 points. At the time of his departure to New Zealand, Stokes was averaging 200.36 points per active week. At the same time, Root's average was 135.3. Even after this spell of exceptional T20 form, the Yorkshireman's average is only 152.4. In this very unusual year, Root's ascension to the head of the table is even more reliant on the inactivity of others.

Lewis Gregory is our final Englishman to have made positive steps for his County. Much like Root, Gregory was under baked for his national team but returned to Somerset to look the real deal once more. In September, where he has just played for Somerset, Gregory has picked up 724 points. Whilst with England he gained 323 from four intra squad games and three ODIs. There is nothing revelatory here. The standard of batsmen he faces with the ball and bowlers he faces with the bat will be of a lower standard in the Blast than internationally. However the difference is stark. His position in the overall list has hugely improved in this time too. Just over two months ago Gregory reached his lowest overall place of 12th. This week he moves into the top three for the first time. As I have written before, a lot of this can be put down to the fact that Gregory has played the second most Cricket of anyone on our list. This week was his 15th active week out of 37 - however his average scores per week have also markedly improved. As little as a fortnight ago he had the seventh lowest weekly score at 118.31. His run in the Blast and the Bob Willis Trophy has seen him improve by four places - his current score is 124.4 per week. This places him higher than luminaries such as Aaron Finch (118.62) and Babar Azam (114.69). Yes, Gregory's third place position is flattering - but he has made a huge improvement.

Week


Colin Ackermann- 169
Rohit Sharma - 132
Lewis Gregory - 130
Joe Root- 130
Steve Smith - 109
Aaron Finch- 89
Babar Azam - 82
Simon Harmer - 62
Virat Kohli- 35
Glenn Maxwell - 26
Shubman Gill - 7
David Warner - 6


Tom Banton - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Travis Head- dnp
Jason Holder- dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp


Overall


Joe Root - 2286
Ben Stokes - 2204
Lewis Gregory - 1866
Babar Azam - 1835
Simon Harmer - 1782
Jason Holder- 1691
Aaron Finch - 1542
Mohammad Nabi - 1437
Glenn Maxwell - 1353
Marnus Labuschagne - 1337
Colin Ackermann - 1282
Steve Smith - 1269
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
David Warner - 1106
Tom Banton - 1048
Travis Head - 901
Virat Kohli - 824
Shubman Gill - 759
Rohit Sharma - 603
Peter Handscomb - 383

Joe Root - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

By the time these cold Autumn months are drawing in the County Cricket season is usually done and dusted. The long form season would have just finished and the T20 Blast would be a halcyon dream of mid Summer heat. So to the men's international season would be consigned to nostalgic remembrance. This has not been the case this year. We see the T20 Blast final in October and the International summer has just finished. This means that some players have taken unique pathways across competitions; ones we have not seen before and likely will not see again. Joe Root is a classic example of this. He began the week in England's bio-secure bubble and ended it playing for Yorkshire in the T20 Blast. This is not the only way his week has varied. If you had told me that Joe Root would have won Cricketer of the Week after his solitary point in the first ODI I would have told you to get on your bike. Root's performances got (marginally) better in the next two fixtures. 39 in the second ODI was acceptable. A duck was saved by his part-time spin in the series decider. So far so unspectacular. On popping his international bubble and returning home Root had 84 points for the week. This would have placed him third bottom for active players this week - just above Marnus Labuschagne and just below Aaron Finch. But his week did not stop there. Yorkshire's T20 Blast campaign has been beleaguered in it's later stages by four senior players coming down with the Corona virus. Root, ever the servant to club and country, answered the call. And what a good call that was. 2-25 and a 39 ball 64 in the Roses match saw him accrue a further 154 points and claim his third Cricketer of the Week accolade of 2020. Root has taken advantage of a surprisingly friendly year for English international cricket. A mainstay of our lists since 2018, this is the first time that Root has topped the weekly table three times in a year. He is also narrowing the gap on first placed Ben Stokes. He has one final T20 Blast game against Derbyshire tomorrow and you would back him to get the 48 points needed to overtake his fellow Englishman.

For Glenn Maxwell to only squeak into the weekly top five seems unfair to the point of egregious. Everyone's favourite big hitter provided the big show he always promises in the final ODI. His match-winning 108 pulled Australia out of the fire and single-handedly claimed the series for the men in yellow. He was by far the star performer of the five players on our list in the series with 336 points. To put this into comparison: that is over double the 141 points Aaron Finch secured. He also scored 85 more runs than his captain with the highest points for strike rate and fielding. All of this is even more shocking when you consider he scored a solitary point in the second ODI. He finished the series with an average points per game score of 112 - again, Finch was second with 47. Maxwell was the leading Cricketer on our list for 2019 and has regained his place in the top ten this week. He started the limited overs series in lowly 18th and has shot up the stsndings. Maxwell will be hoping to do a Jason Holder by following up a decent international tour with an above average T20 franchise competition,. If he does, Maxwell and Punjab could have smiles on their face by the end of the IPL.

I also feel sorry for Babar Azam who has also had one amazing performance in amongst a morass of dross. Azam was a disappointment against England and hasn't provided his usual pyrotechnics for Somerset. On calculating average points per active weeks last week, Azam was one of four players whose average was under 100. These lacklustre performances continued this week with a score of 4 against Northamptonshire and 10 against Gloucestershire. The difference is that, between those two fixtures, sat a 62 ball 114 against Glamorgan. This did a lot of big things for Azam. It moved into the top 3 for the first time - seeing him and Holder swap places. It also pushed his average score per active weeks considerably north of 100 - 116.87 for his 15 active weeks. Another thing it did was stand out against his other mediocre performances. The fact that Azam's best innings of the Summer occurred on a live stream in Cardiff rather than in front of Sky's (or in fact BBC's) cameras is a let down. We also need to ask ourselves when Babar will play again. Azam has one more game inked into his diary - Gloucestershire tomorrow. Somerset do have a narrow chance to qualify from there which will elongate his run. After that? Seemingly nothing. With the IPL starting today, Azam will be looking at the likes of Mohammad Nabi, Finch and Maxwell just behind him. His days in the top five are numbered.

Week


Joe Root - 243
Babar Azam - 218
Colin Ackermann - 202
Lewis Gregory - 198
Glenn Maxwell - 179
Simon Harmer - 171
Aaron Finch- 125
Marnus Labuschagne- 78
David Warner - 32


Kyle Abbott - dnp
Tom Banton - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Martin Guptil - dnp
Peter Handscomb - dnp
Travis Head - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Virat Kohli - dnp
Keshav Maharaj - dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp
Steve Smith - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp


Overall


Ben Stokes - 2204
Joe Root - 2156
Babar Azam - 1753
Lewis Gregory - 1736
Simon Harmer - 1720
Jason Holder- 1691
Aaron Finch - 1453
Mohammad Nabi - 1437
Marnus Labuschagne - 1337
Glenn Maxwell - 1327
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Steve Smith - 1160
Colin Ackermann -1113
David Warner - 1100
Tom Banton - 1048
Travis Head - 901
Virat Kohli - 787
Shubman Gill - 752
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 383

Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

When it comes to weeks where there is County cricket, Simon Harmer is always expected to claim Cricketer of the Week. And so it has come to pass this week. Our all time highest point scorer registered another 300+ score this week (his eight ever) and claimed Cricketer of the Week (his third of the year and eighteenth ever). When it comes to the red ball competitions Harmer is king. However he is starting to become exposed in relation to his T20 game. Despite that magnificent T20 win last year for Essex, Harmer has now had two back to back failures. First the 2019 Mzansi Super League and now this year's T20 Blast. The extent of Harmer's lack of form can be compared to another player from our list. Colin Ackermann is built in the Harmer mound - and by comparing the two we can have some idea of how Harmer racks up. In terms of raw totals, Harmer is in charge. Since the start of the tournament Harmer had picked up 230 points compared to Ackermann's 158. But this is flawed as Ackermann has played far fewer games. Before last night's fixtures, Harmer had the lead on average points per game too. His 57.5 bettered Ackermann's 20 from two games. However last night, Harmer got a score of zero against Surrey whilst Ackermann got 118 against Yorkshire. This meant that Ackermann's average is now 52.67 compared to Harmer's 46. In terms of T20 cricket their is little difference between the two. Yet such is Harmer's red ball prowess that he has just moved into fourth position whilst Ackermann is in 16th . What may be concerning is that Essex have one final Bob Willis Trophy game and a limited number of Blast games. After that (as far as I can see) Harmer's year is over. He will need to get a characteristically huge score against Somerset in the final to cement his top ten place in this year's list.

The T20 leg of Australia's tour of England is over and the ODIs have begun. Thus far there have been two big beneficiaries representative of both of those formats. In T20 it was Aaron Finch that impressed the most out of the five featured players on our list. He outperformed in all relevant categories except for fielding where Smith prevailed. In the run column (the only one that really matters in T20) he was way ahead with 125. Ironically Warner was in second place despite the fact he only scored a run in the first T20 before getting a duck and not featuring in the final game. This has seen Finch move up three places on the overall list to eighth spot. With a change of format, comes a change of form for Finch. After yesterday's opening ODI, Finch has found himself out performed by two other players: Marnus Labuschagne and, most notably, Glenn Maxwell. Maxwell's T20 haul of 123 looks decent - but only 26.83% of those came from the bat. He certainly addressed that concern yesterday. His score of 77 plus three contributions in the field puts him in first place out of the five players who featured in that game. This performance has seen the Victorian move up two places into 13th. If he keeps this T20 form up for the rest of the series and into the IPL, he could be a challenging for a top five berth soon enough.


Once upon a time you could be safe in the knowledge that most players on our list would feature in a similar number of games. Corona has put a stop to this. This has seen a huge disparity in terms of active game weeks in 2020 - from 16 out of 35 to 0 in the case of Kyle Abbott. One of the chiefs beneficiaries of this is Lewis Gregory. The Somerset all-Rounder has had a poor year. His chances in the ODI squad looks to have come to an end after a series of poor performances. However he has just moved into the top five of the year - above much more illustrious company. The reason for this is the sheer number of games that Gregory has played. In 2020 Gregory has been active thirteen out of 35 weeks. This puts him in joint third with Joe Root - only Babar Azam with 14 and Tom Banton with 16 have more. When you divide his total score by those active weeks, it does not make pretty reading for Gregory. His average active weekly score of 118.31 puts him in a lowly 16th position. So Gregory has played a lot and played averagely across the year and moves into the top five. There are other players that this reflects even worse on. Banton is another player who has not built up on their 2019 promises. This is shown in his average. He is second bottom with 65.50. Peter Handscomb is one below him with the lowest average score of 47.88 from his eight weeks. The bottom three is rounded off by Virat Kohli with 87.67 across nine weeks. The top of the table is to be expected. Simon Harmer is number one with an average weekly score of 309.2 with Ben Stokes in second with 200.36 in his 11 active weeks. Colin Ackermann should be very pleased with his weekly active average of 182.20 which rounds off the top 3.


That list in full:


Harmer 309.2
Stokes 200.36
Ackermann 182.2
Holder 153.73
Root 147.15
Maharaj 146.25
Nabi 143.7
Maxwell 143.5
Labuschagne 139.89
Head 128.71
Gill 125.33
Guptill 124.3
Finch 120.73
Warner 118.67
Gregory 118.31
Sharma 117.75
Smith 105.45
Azam 94.64
Kohli 87.67
Banton 65.5
Handscomb 47.88
Abbott n/a


Week


Simon Harmer - 329
Lewis Gregory - 328
Glenn Maxwell - 219
Colin Ackermann - 186
Aaron Finch - 155
Jason Holder- 119
David Warner - 114
Mohammad Nabi - 111
Marnus Labuschagne- 41
Steve Smith - 33
Tom Banton - 14
Joe Root - 1
Babar Azam - 0


Kyle Abbott - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Martin Guptill - dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Travis Head- dnp
Virat Kohli- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Rohit Sharma- dnp
Ben Stokes- dnp


Overall


Ben Stokes - 2204
Joe Root - 1912
Jason Holder- 1691
Simon Harmer - 1546
Lewis Gregory - 1538
Babar Azam - 1535
Mohammad Nabi - 1437
Aaron Finch - 1328
Marnus Labuschagne - 1259
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Steve Smith - 1160
Glenn Maxwell - 1148
David Warner - 1068
Tom Banton - 1048
Colin Ackermann -911
Travis Head - 901
Virat Kohli - 787
Shubman Gill - 752
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 383

Joe Root - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

To say that things are returning back to normal is something over an overstatement but we are getting there. Last week only ten players did not feature. This is the lowest Week for inactive Cricketers since the week beginning March 9th. It's also quite a unique Week as all players have been competing solely in the T20 format. What's more is that an awful lot of these Cricketers have been awfully active. A lot of our active players have featured in four T20 games this week with Jason Holder featuring in five. The player that featured the least is Colin Ackermann with two completed games (points are only allocated for completed games - much to the chagrin of Tom Banton). That week in March where cricket was still 'normal' saw Joe Root as Cricketer of the Week. Almost symbolically he has claimed the title again this week. Root has 'done a Stuart Broad' and reacted to his lack of inclusion in the England T20 side by looking like one of the premium short form players of our age. Across three games for Yorkshire he has scored 154 runs and got four wickets. Statistics that are verging on all- rounder status. What is more impressive is that he has got his highest ever weekly score of 364 featuring in just 4 games. Of all the players that featured this week he has the highest point per game average of 121.33. In this English international heavy year, Root is pulling away from the pack and is gaining on Stokes. Second place Root now has a 340 point lead on Holder and has narrowed the gap between himself and Ben Stokes to 292. With Stokes out of the game for the foreseeable and Holder with one game left in the CPL, Root is likely to continue his dominance in 2020. This is especially the case if he continues to offer something with both bat and ball.

This balance between bat and ball has also seen Mohammad Nabi debut in the Top 5. When Joe Root last won Cricketer of the Week, Nabi played his final game until the start of the CPL three weeks ago. He went into lockdown in 14th position, started the CPL in 17th position, after the first week was in tenth and is now fifth. He has shown himself to be the best All Rounder in the competition. He is the only player to feature in the top ten highest run scorer and top ten most wickets. He has also had the beating of fellow Cricket List CPL All Rounder Holder. Nabi has only scored two more runs at a lower strike rate but he has out performed Holder in all other categories. Nabi has three more wickets, 50 more economy points, twenty more fielding points and points for a three wicket haul. Since the start of the tournament Nabi has scored 605 points to Holder's 503. What is more Barbados are out and St Lucia are looking likely to progress. This could see Nabi encroach further up the List as the tournament continues. Nabi's consistency has also been impressive. Despite playing four games, his average point score is second highest over the last week - 81.25 a game. If St Lucia progress to the final they have at least three games to play - on paper another 244 points for the Afghan. A. Rey good basis for the All Rounder to build up on in the IPL.

As I have said, we have had a lot more active players this week. This is largely down to the fact that Australia have started playing again. This year's list has a high proportion of Aussies and five of them returned to work for the first time this week. As well as yesterday's opening T20 against England, they played out 3 (completed) Intra-Squad T20 friendlies. The two best players in those games were Marnus Labuschagne and Glenn Maxwell. Scholars of the game will notice that their success in the friendly games didn't transfer into the main game. Marnus Labuschagne had the third highest average points per game total in the three warm up games - 72.67. His 51 ball century opening for the AJ Finch XI against the PJ Cummins XI is responsible for most of this. One of the problems that Finch and Langer seem to be having with Labuschagne is where to play him. He scored his century as an opener - but Finch and Warner's performance yesterday makes it unlikely that combo will be tampered with. His second highest score came at first drop - Smith's position - whilst he failed with a score of 7 when he batted at five. Ironically, this is the position for which he is being groomed. Marcus Stoinis and Alex Carey are going to be looked at closely after yesterday's performance. Labuschagne could either replace Stoinis or push Carey down a spot. Either way Labuschagne, who only just dropped out of the top ten last week, sees himself back up to 7th place. Returning 2019 Cricketer of the Year Glenn Maxwell did not have a dream resumption to his national career. After a period of time off for mental health followed by a shoulder injury, Maxwell got one run yesterday. He di bolster his overall score with a brace of wickets and 20 economy points. This saw him escape with a creditable 61 points. In many ways, he had a similar warm-up series to Labuschagne. A century in the first game followed by an average score (20) and a low score (10). Across the four games he averaged 69.75 points per game and also got the third highest total points for the week. Not bad for a batsman who scored just one run in the main game for the week. This profitable week sees him move from 19th to 15th. This now makes the bottom three, in ascending order, Peter Handscomb, Rohit Sharma and Colin Ackermann.

For reference, the rest of the average points per game rankings runs like this:
Babar Azam 58.75
Simon Harmer 57.67
Aaron Finch 48.25
Jason Holder 46.4
Tom Banton 38
David Warner 33.25
Steve Smith 29.5
Colin Ackermann 20
Lewis Gregory 17

Week

Joe Root- 364
Mohammad Nabi- 325
Glenn Maxwell - 279
Babar Azam - 235
Jason Holder - 232
Marnus Labuschagne- 218
Aaron Finch- 193
Simon Harmer - 173
David Warner - 133
Steve Smith - 118
Tom Banton - 114
Lewis Gregory - 68
Colin Ackermann- 40

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Travis Head- dnp
Virat Kohli- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Rohit Sharma- dnp
Ben Stokes- dnp

Overall

Ben Stokes - 2204
Joe Root - 1912
Jason Holder- 1572
Babar Azam - 1535
Mohammad Nabi - 1326
Martin Guptill - 1243
Marnus Labuschagne - 1218
Simon Harmer - 1217
Lewis Gregory - 1210
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Aaron Finch - 1173
Steve Smith - 1127
Tom Banton - 1024
David Warner - 954
Glenn Maxwell - 928
Travis Head - 901
Virat Kohli - 787
Shubman Gill - 752
Colin Ackermann -725
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 383