Lewis Gregory was not supposed to be the runaway star of the Bob Willis Trophy final. Simon Harmer has outperformed him in all metrics up until last weekend. Harmer's 38 wickets across the competition was eight more than second placed Craig Overton and 20 more than Gregory's. Harmer's form has seen him win Cricketer of the Week three times in the eight weeks of the tournament. The first was a huge 453 point haul where he took 14 wickets across a single match against Surrey. Over the last eight weeks Harmer has managed to top our list of average points per active week with 254.57 - 54.21 more than second placed Ben Stokes. In comparison, Lewis Gregory has only won Cricketer of the Week once this year. This fell in February where his 185 points playing for the England Lions gave him the ninth lowest winning score since the list started. On his return from England duty, his average points per active game week was 118.31 - 190.89 fewer than Harmer's. On top of all this - Somerset lost.....well drew....but lost. But that is enough of what should have been because it was Gregory who blew Harmer away to get his second Cricketer of the Week accolade. And you can't begrudge him it. Since returning from international duty, Gregory has gone from strength to strength. From being the seventh lowest in terms of points per week he is now eight highest on 132.88. This has seen the Somerset player get within 78 points of second placed Ben Stokes. This being said, Gregory is now going to have a period away from the game whilst Stokes is currently on a plane to join up with Rajasthan. Gregory's place in the top three might be in jeopardy as the IPL continues but the last month has salvaged his year. Rather than him being a player that has played a lot of average cricket over the year, his epitaph might be that he's had a pretty decent domestic year.
By all accounts Colin Ackermann is another player who has made hay in the delayed English summer. His average points over the last 8 weeks stands at 179.38 - enough to see him third on the table. He has also burst upwards after bnot featuring on the list to eventually coming to land in ninth place. The last two T20 Blast performances helped him to creep into that top ten position. Three wickets out of nowhere against Lancashire and Nottinghamshire saw Leicestershire extend their run in the competition. It also saw Ackermann add another 322 points to his total. Across the course of the competition, Ackermann scored 682 points. This is 219 more than Simon Harmer managed. His average points per game across this time was 75.78. This is genuinely rather than impressive. If we were to correlate points to the influence a player has in the game (which isn't an exact science) we could argue that Ackermann has been more impressive than any of our IPL players. As we stand Smith's average per game is 70.67 with with Sharma second on 67.5. This is not a like for like comparison and if Mohammad Nabi or Jason Holder had played more we would have a fairer comparison. It is safe to say that Ackermann is an influential T20 presence. He is another one of these players that it is hard to envisage playing too much more cricket this year. Unless the Netherlands have play over the next three months, Ackermann's total of 1935 might be his final score.
Whoever you look at in our list of IPL players one word springs to mind. Inconsistency. There is only one player who has steadily improved as the competition has gone on and that is David Warner. This can largely be put down to the fact that the Hyderabad opener has an incredibly poor game scoring 6 against Bangalore. Like all good competitors he got off the canvas and got his highest points in the tournament in the very next game. He scored 66 points against Kolkata - 36 of which were from runs. This saw him averaging 36 points per game. After this came 45 runs and 65 points against Delhi - bumping his average points up to 45.67. Yesterday's game against Chennai was something of a backward step in terms of runs (28) and points (48) but his average went up a jot to 46.25. In the grand scheme of things Wanrer's performance are average but consistently improving. In tournaments like the IPL this is the recipe for success. Looking at the names above Warner for total points and average points, they are up and down like yo-yos. Sharma's average points went up by 63 points before dropping 23 and then going back up to 67.5. Smith started very strongly but has had a sharp dip in form. Whereas Warner is quietly improving. If Warner can do anything quietly. He got the third highest score of anyone this week. He is also now 92 points away from re entering the top ten for the first time since lockdown. There is quite a bunch of antipodean IPL players in front of him in the form of Maxwell and Smith but you'd put your money on slow and steady winning the race.
Week
Lewis Gregory - 260
Shubman Gill - 187
David Warner - 179
Colin Ackermann - 153
Simon Harmer - 140
Rohit Sharma - 138
Steve Smith- 103
Aaron Finch- 92
Glenn Maxwell - 24
Mohammad Nabi- 21
Virat Kohli - 7
Kyle Abbott- dnp
Babar Azam - dnp
Tom Banton - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb - dnp
Travis Head - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp
Overall
Joe Root - 2286
Ben Stokes - 2204
Lewis Gregory - 2126
Simon Harmer - 1922
Babar Azam - 1835
Jason Holder- 1691
Aaron Finch - 1634
Mohammad Nabi - 1458
Colin Ackermann - 1435
Glenn Maxwell - 1377
Steve Smith - 1372
Marnus Labuschagne - 1337
David Warner - 1285
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Tom Banton - 1048
Shubman Gill - 946
Travis Head - 901
Virat Kohli - 831
Rohit Sharma - 741
Peter Handscomb - 383
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