Remember when Ben Stokes was having a bad IPL? If I had done this post yesterday as I has planned he still would have been. He would have had 76 points - sandwiching him between Shubman Gill and Steve Smith. A trio of misfiring IPL batsmen. And then he fired. His century for Rajasthan yesterday yielded him 187 points . This eclipses the highest IPL total so far this year - Virat Kohli's 140 against Chennai). T20 is Stokes' least effective format - however when he pulls it out the fire it produces moments that are seared into your memory. It is odd how one performance can turn the course of a tournament. Before yesterday's game Stokes averaged 32 points a game with only Glenn Maxwell (19.21) and Tom Banton (9) below him. After the game his average was 57.83 with only Kohli (59), David Warner (59.64) and Jason Holder (67.5) above him. In the blink of an eye Stokes has eclipsed some of our other IPL contributors in exactly half the time. Maxwell's season has been a poor one. The Punjab allrounder has only one score in the top half of all individual contributions (31 points or more). It has taken Stokes six games to overhaul Maxwell's eleven game total of 212 points. Stokes also has 115 more runs and 40 more points for Strike Rate than the Aussie. It is not just Maxwell who he has overshadowed. He has ten more batting bonus points than Aaron Finch and has more points for fielding than Finch, Kohli and Smith. All of those players have featured in their side from the start. If Stokes had played all games, at his current average, his expected total would be 694 - 38 more than current leader David Warner. What could have been! What has happened, however, is that Stokes has reclaimed his position at the top of the overall list. After a month of playing second fiddle to Joe Root and Babar Azam, Stokes is leading us out as we approach the final two months of the year.
That David Warner is our current IPL points leader might come as a surprise to you. His Hyderabad team have had their worst season in many a year and Warner's performances haven't lit up the tournament. What he has done this year, which has eluded him in year's gone by, is shown consistency. Over the last eleven fixtures, Warner's average points have improved in all but two rounds. Hos tournament high reached 66.43 after his 48 runs against Rajasthan in fixture 7. He now has the second highest average of 59.64 - with only newbie Holder trumping him. There have been 87 individual contributions from our players in this year's IPL - ranging from Stokes 180 yesterday to Glenn Maxwell's 0 against RCB. If we divide these performances into thirds we see a majority of Warner's outings within the top 29. Basically, this means that in seven of his 11 games he has scored 61 points or more. However, if we were to look at scores of more than 100 points (the sign of an outstanding game) there have only been two. This means that 45% of Warner's matches in this year's IPL have been somewhere between 61 and 100 points. Not bad going at all - despite the fact that it's looking like progression to the knockout phase may be unlikely. Warner moves up to eighth - a position he has got no higher than since the third week in January.
In terms of delivering what your national coach asks of you, Travis Head has followed through. At the start of the Sheffield Shield season, Justin Langer sent a message to those on the fringes of national selection; perform well and you'll get in. Usman Khawaja is a man trying to force his way back in whilst Cameron Green is making it hard to be ignored. It's difficult to tell who the incumbent is at the moment but if anyone can claim that title it is Travis Head. It seems an inordinate period of time since Head's second Test century in the Boxing Day Test in 2019 - however there have only been a handful of Tests since then. And yet the South Australian has his critics. Those critics will have to have a rethink after his second week in a row in the top five. His contribution against West Australia was decent - 85 runs plus some points for his part time bowling. That looks paltry compared to his haul of 213 points against Tasmania - all points from the bat. His 171* to save the game showed that he can score big and also grind out a game when needed. He arrived at the crease at 79-2 with his side trailing by more than 200 runs. To succeed under such circumstances is even more impressive. In a week where only four Cricketers moved up in the list, Travis jumped the highest. Overtaking Tom Banton and Keshav Maharaj into 17th. It is worth noting that Banton has played in 18 weeks of this year to reach his current total of 1066. Travis Head's 1249 points have come from just nine weeks. His average points per active week stands at 138.78 - Banton's at 59.22.
Week
Ben Stokes- 256
Travis Head- 213
David Warner - 166
Martin Guptill- 125
Jason Holder- 135
Virat Kohli- 108
Glenn Maxwell - 104
Shubman Gill - 86
Steve Smith- 56
Aaron Finch- 31
Rohit Sharma- 21
Tom Banton - 10
Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann - dnp
Babar Azam- dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Joe Root- dnp
Overall
Ben Stokes - 2551
Babar Azam - 2300
Joe Root - 2286
Lewis Gregory - 2126
Simon Harmer - 1922
Aaron Finch - 1829
Jason Holder- 1826
David Warner - 1750
Steve Smith - 1606
Marnus Labuschagne - 1594
Glenn Maxwell - 1539
Mohammad Nabi - 1458
Colin Ackermann - 1435
Virat Kohli - 1438
Martin Guptill - 1368
Shubman Gill - 1303
Travis Head - 1249
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Tom Banton - 1066
Rohit Sharma - 913
Peter Handscomb - 383
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