Some might say that Shubman Gill has snatched Cricketer of the Week worthier performances. Stokes scored the second highest points total of the IPL against Punjab to get 150 points. Warner got the third highest against Delhi earlier in the week. Critics (and Gill has a lot of them) will also point to the fact that Gill is one of only two players to have played twice this week. And yet, they may say, he still got the third lowest total for a Cricketer of the Week in the history of us doing this. However for all the stick that Gill has been getting in this tournament he has been one of the most consistent players. His average points per game speaks to that. Gill's current average is 54.15 - the fourth highest overall and third for players that have featured in every game. Averages don't tell the full story though. One must look at individual performances. If you split all performances by our list members in this year's IPL into thirds you automatically get a series of strong performances (61 points or more), poor performances (18 points or fewer) and average performances. When you compare the five players that have played in all fixtures (Gill, Kohli, Maxwell, Smith and Warner), Gill is joint lowest for poor performances. His 7 points against Mumbai and 1 against Bangalore represent his low water mark. The main criticism of Gill is his pedestrian strike rate in the Powerplay. This is not borne out in comparison to our Listed cricketers. Overall he has the second most Strike Rate points of any of ten IPL players. 170 of his 704 points in the competition come from Strike Rate - only David Warner with 190 has higher. There have only been four games out of the thirteen Gill has played where he hasn't picked up points for Strike Rate . Two of those were due to him not collecting the 20 runs he needed to qualify. Gill's week has been buoyed up by inclusion in India's Test squad for the eagerly anticipated tour of Australia. The longest format suits Gill better as it is his more natural style of play. If can jump 6 places in the IPL - a tournament for which he is not well suited - who knows what he can achieve in the longest form.
Another strong IPL performance this week came from David Warner. Last week I called Warner Mr Consistent; suggesting that he wasn't blowing the roof off of innings in the way that he is capable. He then immediately got the fourth highest match point total of the IPL with 136 against Delhi. This sees him move up to sixth place - a mere 36 points off Simon Harmer and a place in the top five. That quickfire 66, coupled with Kohli's disappointing score of 9 against Mumbai, now sees the Hyderabad captain almost home and hosed in terms of overall points. The three contenders are Warner with 792 points, Gill with 704 and Kohli now lagging behind with 658. There are obviously huge question marks around progression for Hyderabad which may hold Warner back. This being said, Warner's superior average points per game of 66 would suggest to me that regardless of progression he is a force to be reckon with. Gill has one more game before the knock outs. He would have to score way above his average to eat into the 88 point deficit. Despite the fact that Kohli now has a huge 134 point gulf to fill, Bangalore are just about guaranteed to progress. This means that Kohli can expect to bank 164 points - working on his average of 54.83. This means that, going in to the knockouts, we can forecast Wee Davey to be 156 points ahead of Kohli - but Virat has that extra game. So....in short....who knows. Exciting eh?
Leaving the glitz of the IPL behind we've seen antipodean cricket kick into life over the last fortnight. One person who'll benefit from this is Martin Guptill. There's a man who needs to be looking on the bright side of life. If any of our Cricketers had the right to feel aggrieved about cricket's suspension then Guptill is the one with the best claim. When the world stopped, the New Zealander had enjoyed a three week stretch as the top of our overall list. He was 67 points ahead of Keshav Maharaj and had 115 on Ben Stokes in third. And then nothing...until July when cricket restarted...in England. No opportunity to play County Championship cricket for Martin who was stuck in New Zealand. Meanwhile Stokes went from strength to strength. The England allrounder won the first three Cricketers of the Week after the resumption. When Guptill scored his first points in the Plunket Shield last week he was the third to last Cricketer to restart after lockdown. Only Peter Handscomb and Maharaj still waiting it out. Between him turning out for New Zealand in Sydney in March and last week's Auckland game his 115 point lead on Stokes turned into a 1052 point deficit. Rather than top spot, the New Zealander found himself in 15th. Not to be dissuaded though, he has gone back to doing what he does best - scoring points. He has finished fourth in terms of weekly points for the last two weeks and has moved back up to thirteenth place. With New Zealand seemingly a safe haven from the pandemic, how good could Guptill's Summer get?
Week
Shubman Gill - 153
Ben Stokes- 150
David Warner - 136
Martin Guptill- 88
Steve Smith - 61
Glenn Maxwell - 26
Jason Holder - 20
Babar Azam- 19
Virat Kohli - 9
Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann- dnp
Tom Banton- dnp
Aaron Finch - dnp
Lewis Gregory- dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Travis Head- dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Mohammad Nabi - dnp
Joe Root- dnp
Rohit Sharma- dnp
Overall
Ben Stokes - 2701
Babar Azam - 2319
Joe Root - 2286
Lewis Gregory - 2126
Simon Harmer - 1922
David Warner - 1886
Jason Holder- 1846
Aaron Finch - 1829
Steve Smith - 1667
Marnus Labuschagne - 1594
Glenn Maxwell - 1565
Mohammad Nabi - 1458
Shubman Gill - 1456
Martin Guptill - 1456
Virat Kohli - 1447
Colin Ackermann - 1435
Travis Head - 1249
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Tom Banton - 1066
Rohit Sharma - 913
Peter Handscomb - 383
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