It was Ben Stokes that I prophesied would knock Joe Root off top spot and reclaim his title at the top of the list. This did not come to pass despite the flame-haired allrounder's return to cricket. Instead, we have a brand new name at the very top of the list - that of Babar Azam. Nobody has played more cricket than Azam in 2020. His active weeks stand at 18 out of 40. That is one more than Tom Banton and two more than Lewis Gregory and Aaron Finch - however he would have few better weeks than the last seven days. His form in the National T20 cup for Central Punjab has been nothing short of breath-taking. He has made 325 runs in five games. This is even more impressive when you consider he got a duck in one of them. His average points per game stands at 93. To put this into comparison, Steve Smith registered an average of 104.5 in fixture 2 of the IPL. Apart from that no IPL Cricketer on our list has got within touching distance of that average. This week has improved his overall average points per active week. He now stands at 127.78 - 12th placed out of our 22 players. This indicates that Babar has played an awful lot of decent, if not spectacular, cricket in this most unusual of years. His lead on Stokes is a mere five points so his tenure as the leading Cricketer in the World may be brief in the short term. We many need to consider Babar as a contender. If Stokes were to overtake him before the close of the IPL, Babar has a home series against minnows Zimbabwe to boost his score.
Have faith in Virat Kohli and he will deliver. A poor start to the IPL season and a lowly position in the overall list were cast aside this week to see the Indian captain pick up 324 points from four games. This has seen him shoot up the list from 18th to 14th. His improvement over the last fortnight has been very impressive. Averaging 14 points per game after the first three fixtures, he now averages 60.11 - the highest of any of our IPL contributors. He also has picked up 541 points since the start of the competition - the highest of any of our players. Despite his insipid start his total yield of 351 runs is 67 more than David Warner. He also has 20 more Strike Rate points than Shubman Gill who is second in that particular metric. His 140 points from last Saturday's game against Chennai is the highest score for any of our players. His 140 from 90 runs with a strike rate of 173.07 is worth 20 points more than Rohit Sharma's performance against Kolkata in Match 5. Bangalore are guaranteed another five games and seem likely to progress even further. This means that, working on Kohli's current average, he may be expected to accrue another 301 points before we get to the knockouts. That should be enough to see him into the top ten - a place he has not been for the last thirty weeks.
Happily the Sheffield Shield, unlike most other forms of cricket around the world, has not been effected temporally by Covid. This means that some of our least active players will come to the fore once again. Travis Head had only been active for seven weeks before his game for South Australia this week. Bottom placed Peter Handscomb will be back in action in two weeks time. The biggest beneficiary of antipodean cricket this week was an Aussie who had played more than most. Marnus Labuschagne has featured in 11 weeks of cricket this year - one fewer than the average. This week he provided one of his best performances in Queensland's opening fixture. The mercurial batsmen has a propensity to score big runs and delivered this week with 167 against Tasmania. His part time bowling also helped him chip in 50 points to his total to see him finish third in the weekly table. Labuschagne hadn't played any cricket since Australia's tour of England but finished that chapter of the year in ninth place. He has picked up where he left off there by shooting back up to eight place this week. With the international players featuring in the first four rounds of the Shield, scores like this won't hurt the South African born Aussie one bit.
Week
Babar Azam - 329
Virat Kohli- 324
Marnus Labuschagne- 257
Travis Head- 135
Aaron Finch - 133
Steve Smith - 113
Ben Stokes- 91
David Warner - 87
Shubman Gill - 85
Rohit Sharma- 50
Tom Banton - 8
Glenn Maxwell - 0
Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann- dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Martin Guptill - dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Jason Holder- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Joe Root- dnp
Overall
Babar Azam - 2300
Ben Stokes - 2295
Joe Root - 2286
Lewis Gregory - 2126
Simon Harmer - 1922
Aaron Finch - 1798
Jason Holder- 1691
Marnus Labuschagne - 1594
David Warner - 1584
Steve Smith - 1550
Mohammad Nabi - 1458
Colin Ackermann - 1435
Glenn Maxwell - 1435
Virat Kohli - 1330
Martin Guptill - 1243
Shubman Gill - 1217
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Tom Banton - 1048
Travis Head - 1036
Rohit Sharma - 892
Peter Handscomb - 383
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