Maybe the gods of Cricket are smiling on those less fortunate this week. Everyone that featured this week started in the bottom ten in terms of points per active week. This ranged from Glenn Maxwell at 125.18 down to Virat Kohli at 75.55. One player that made positive progress on all fronts is David Warner - this week's Cricketer of the Week. His 212 points this week is another improvement for the Australian who has got better and better as the IPL has continued. He began the tournament poorly with 6 runs against Bangalore. His next two performances saw him get points in the sixties. This week both his performances have been in three figures - 100 against Mumbai and 112 against Punjab. He is now the highest IPL scorer of our eleven players with 397 points. He has also scored the most runs, with the most Strike Rate points and joint most points for fielding. He can also boast the highest average points per game - standing at 66.17. Quite an achievement when you take that score of 6 into consideration. If you remove that game from history, his average would be a monumental 78.2. This stellar week has seen Warner move up five places on the overall list - overtaking Mohammad Nabi, Colin Ackermann and his three international colleagues Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne. There is quite a gulf between him and the next player on the list - Aaron Finch. With Finch's poor form you would not bet against Davey ending the IPL as our highest Australian competitor.
Whereas Warner's ascent has been gradual, Kohli's has shot up. Just two fixtures ago he was averaging 14 points per game - second lowest of all our players. At that time his highest score was 34 points from 14 runs and two catches against Hyderabad. Fast forward a week and Kohli's average is a more respectable 43.4 - the fourth most of our players. 72 runs against Rajasthan and 43 against Delhi has seen the Bangalore captain accrue 175 points this week. This is over four times his total for the previous two weeks combined. Such is the gap at the bottom end of the table, that this score only saw him move up one place on the overall list - over-taking Travis Head into 18th. There could be a little more progression for the combative Indian captain. He is currently doing rather well for Bangalore and has a little queue of people in front of him. He is 42 points behind inactive Kolkata player Tom Banton and 126 behind slightly more active Kolkata player Shubman Gill. Further ahead are Keshav Maharaj and Martin Guptill who have both been inactive for 28 weeks. With this in mind, Kohli could turn a poor 2020 on it's head. The last time Kohli made a move up the list was in the sixth week of the year where he moved from seventh to fourth. Whilst moving from 19th to 18th is a slightly different ball game, in current form the only way is up.
Under different circumstances Babar Azam would be one of the hottest prospects in an IPL franchise. Thanks for that Lord Mountbatten! As the creme de la creme of cricket impress in the UAE, Babar returned from Somerset to captain his Central Punjab team in the National T20 Cup. Whilst he was in quarantine for the obligatory two weeks, his team played five and lost four. No prizes for guessing that the return of a player of his calibre reversed their fortunes. Azam's opening fixture saw him score 86 from 52 balls helpin to put Northern Pakistan to the sword. This earned him 136 points - a very high total for a single T20 game. Of all the contributions we have had from our IPL players this year, the average points per game is 47.21. The highest individual score was Rohit Sharma's 120 against Kolkata. Azam scored 16 more than this. You may point the to the quality of opposition as an excuse for this. You would be wrong. The National T20 Cup boasts a hugely competitive quota of Pakistan internationals. The six Northen Pakistan bowlers he faced off against had a combined 206 T20I caps. These are no rookies. Azam's sparkling performance moves him up above Simon Harmer into fourth. Harmer and he have been jostling for position for some time but it would seem Azam has the beating of him as well as every IPL contributor.
Week
David Warner - 212
Shubman Gill - 186
Virat Kohli - 175
Babar Azam - 136
Rohit Sharma - 101
Steve Smith - 65
Glenn Maxwell - 58
Aaron Finch- 31
Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann- dnp
Tom Banton- dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Travis Head- dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp
Overall
Joe Root - 2286
Ben Stokes - 2204
Lewis Gregory - 2126
Babar Azam - 1971
Simon Harmer - 1922
Jason Holder- 1691
Aaron Finch - 1665
David Warner - 1497
Mohammad Nabi - 1458
Steve Smith - 1437
Colin Ackermann - 1435
Glenn Maxwell - 1435
Marnus Labuschagne - 1337
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Shubman Gill - 1132
Tom Banton - 1048
Virat Kohli - 1006
Travis Head - 901
Rohit Sharma - 842
Peter Handscomb - 383
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