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
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