Quinton De Kock - The Best Cricketer of the Week

It is in the Mzansi Super League's favour that their summer tournament has very little competition due to the dormancy of most elite players at this time. In a week where 71% off our players were inactive, five of the seven players that registered points this week did so in the MSL. Very top of this tree is the inimitable Quinton De Kock who is finishing the year in impeccable form for Cape Town. His 360 point score seems very apposite for a wicket-keeper batsman who has been giving 360 degree virtuoso performances in his country's inaugural T20 tournament. There have been very few players in our list who have picked up 210 runs in a week purely relying on T20 games but 93 against Paarl and 108 versus Tshwane has seen De Kock put a distinctly average year behind him to claim Cricketer of the Week for the first time in 2018. He has also been flawless with the globes and is inarguably the star player of this tournament. I have mentioned a few times on these posts how QDK is oft overlooked - not least by his IPL franchise Bangalore, however it was announced this week that he has now been acquired by Mumbai. On this current form that could be a master stroke by the three time winners and could see 2019 be a very fruitful year for the South African. His performance this week has seen him overtake Mitchell Marsh and he is primed, suitably, to finish comfortably mid table. 

Never has a Test team been so overlooked than New Zealand have this year. Their hand full of Tests bookending the year have not done their team of talented players justice. Spearheading this list is, as ever, Kane Williamson. Undoubtably one of the finest batsmen of this generation, he has had to settle for IPL showings and County Championship run outs to satiate his burning desire for runs. This week he reminded the world of his Test batting calibre with a spectacular performance in both innings in the final Test against Pakistan. His 288 points sees him finish second for the week. In a year where Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel have finished top of our weekly list a combined 13 times it must be fairly galling that the New Zealand captain has failed to do so even once - but that tells the story of the New Zealand cricketing calendar more than his performances finishing, as he will, in the top ten of our overall table. 2019 looks a more fruitful year for the Kiwis as Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh all visit their shores in the early part of the year as well as the World Cup in England but for Williamson 2018 must seem something of a damp squib. 

As performances this week have been so thin in the ground I just would like to draw your attention to two oddities that feature two of our players. Hashim Amla, who was a main feature in my post last week, was dropped by Durban for his weak performances. Last week I mentioned that he would have to put a real shift in to avoid finishing rock bottom of players that didn't have a more valid excuse...this decision looks like it has been rather taken off his hands. Another player whose 2018 has seen him evolve is Sunil Narine and his final game of the T10 league was indicative of this. The one-time bowler has been on the journey to being an impactful opening batsman during 2018 and this was underlined by the fact that he did not bowl a single ball for Bengal in their third place play off with Maratha and was instead used solely as a batsman. Is this now Narine's natural form? If selected for the 2019 list (which is quite a large if) we will see.

Week

Quinton De Kock- 360
Kane Williamson- 288
Simon Harmer - 145
Rashid Khan - 130
Dean Elgar- 63
AB De Villiers- 55
Sunil Narine- 15
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Hashim Amla - dnp 
Jofra Archer- dnp 
Ravi Ashwi - dnp
George Bailey - dnp 
Jos Buttler - dnp 
JP Duminy - dnp 
Aaron Finch- dnp 
Ravi Jadeja - dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh- dnp 
Shaun Marsh- dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Joe Root- dnp
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 7199
Rashid Khan - 5944
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Virat Kohli- 4618
Jos Buttler - 4534
Jofra Archer - 4383
Sunil Narine- 4377
Joe Root - 4180
Kane Williamson - 4060
Aaron Finch - 3983
Nathan Lyon - 3659
Ravi Ashwin - 3485
Ravi Jadeja - 3303
Shakib Al Hasan - 3106
Quinton de Kock - 2940
Mitchell Marsh - 2799
JP Duminy - 2496
Dean Elgar- 2485
Shaun Marsh- 2467
AB De Villiers- 2316
Hashim Amla - 2176
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1236

Nathan Lyon - The Best Cricketer of the Week (Again)

The Sheffield Shield is one of the strongest domestic leagues in the cricketing world. There are not many cricket boards who would consider letting their national stars have a run out at their home clubs as suitable preparation for the arrival of India; however Cricket Australia, in their infinite wisdom, have done so. This has worked for Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Marsh who finish first and fifth in the weekly table. It is Nathan Lyon's second consecutive week in the top spot and he is going to pose a real threat to the dodgy Indian openers. He has now bagged 16 wickets in two innings with an average economy of 3.1. His two chart topping weeks has seen the New South Welshman pick up 683 in the last fortnight and leapfrog fellow spinners Ravi Jadeja and Ravi Ashwin into 11th place. The battle between these three spinners will be a real treat for fans of that form of bowling. With the three of them all sandwiched within 356 points of each other it should make for a very interesting sideshow as the year slides to a close. Next in Lyon's sights in the overall league is fellow antipodean Kane Williamson, who he could overhaul with a successful series against India. Could Lyon finish in the top ten after all? 

The United Arab Emirate's cricketing vanity project continues to roll on and it is, as ever, very hard to judge the quality of contributions in the shortest and most insignificant format. One thing we can judge is the huge variability of performances that can be pulled out of the bag by players and teams. Sunil Narine got 103 points in the first week of the performance but then brought his A game (or his A game was bought) for Bengal as he clocked up 319 this week. In his four games this week he got three scores over twenty and bagged a strike rate of forty for all of them, helping him to his highest score since February. We have always known that, when called upon, Narine can be ruthless with the bat and he has really proved that this week. It must have been a very good week for the West Indian's bank balance after news has emerged that he has been retained, for a bigger salary, by Kolkata in the IPL. Overall mission accomplished. Rashid Khan has also shown erratic form in the T10 league. He has only got six wickets to show from 6 games this week but his economies highlight the variable nature of the tournament. He started the week with an economy of 3.5 against Rajputs and ended it this afternoon with 19.5 against Bengal - stopping off at every increment of three along the way. To attend one of this games must be jolly good fun but form or talent means next to nothing in the soulless core of cricket. 

There is precious little time in this year's cricketing calendar and time may be up on Hashim Amla to escape the fate of winning the notional wooden spoon. Amla will not be rock bottom of our overall league but it has been an unusual year for the bottom three in the table. George Bailey is now semi-retired and Steve Smith and David Warner....did ...something....I can't remember....it wasn't very well publicised. So if you remove those three from the equation there sits Hashim Amla whose year started mediocre and has slid into dire. In the first 21 weeks of the year the average score for the veteran South African was 72.57 a week. He ended this spell with 241 points and with a brief period away from the game. He came back in Week 28 and has since scored 24.14 a week. One of the lowest averages of any player to have played more than five weeks. In his debut season in the Mzansi Super League he has scored an average of 13.75 off the bat to continue his poor form that began for South Africa, moved with him to the CPL and may well now haunt him into 2019. With just four more posts before the names on the list switch might this be the undignified end to Amla's spell in the echelons of the very top players? 

Week

Nathan Lyon - 333
Sunil Narine- 319 
Virat Kohli - 245
Rashid Khan - 228
Mitchell Marsh- 136
Dean Elgar - 129
George Bailey - 121
Aaron Finch - 119
Ravi Ashwin - 115
Shaun Marsh- 111
Jos Buttler - 110
Simon Harmer - 110
Kane Williamson - 88
Jofra Archer - 80
ABDV - 70
Quinton De Kock- 61
Joe Root - 53
Ravi Jadeja- 40
Hashim Amla- 14
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 


Overall

Simon Harmer - 7054
Rashid Khan - 5814
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Virat Kohli- 4618
Jos Buttler - 4534
Jofra Archer - 4383
Sunil Narine- 4362
Joe Root - 4180
Aaron Finch - 3983
Kane Williamson - 3772
Nathan Lyon - 3659
Ravi Ashwin - 3485
Ravi Jadeja - 3303
Shakib Al Hasan - 3106
Mitchell Marsh - 2799
Quinton de Kock - 2580
JP Duminy - 2496
Shaun Marsh- 2467
Dean Elgar- 2422
AB De Villiers- 2261
Hashim Amla - 2176
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1236

Nathan Lyon - The Best Cricketer of the Week

When looking back over the last week's cricketing action it has made very clear the schizophrenic nature of our great game. Oftentimes the casual observer of our beloved game finds the different variants of the sport a mystery and does not understand the distinctions needed of both the observer and the participant. From those in the inner circle it is all too common for them to look down on certain forms of the game and heap praise on the others. This week there have been three very different type of contests being played out across the world that typify this problem. Further more the leading point scorer in each one of these disciplines further typifies the different styles of players we see in the modern game.

A quarter of our players were playing in good old fashioned long form cricket - four in the Sheffield Shield and a further two in Tests, that grandest of cricketing traditions. Cricketing purists who put this form of cricket on a pedestal will also be overjoyed to hear that five of the top six performers this week were participating in these games. Our top point scorer for the week was Nathan Lyon. A player fully dedicated to his nation's plight. A player who drops out of T20 tournaments in order to ensure his fitness for his national team. This is a level of elite honesty that Australian can only dream of in the post-Sandpapergate era. This week he churned out a nine wicket haul for New South Wales against Queensland. Lyon is a pin up boy for the long form cricket purist. A former groundsman who tenaciously plugged away at his game until he has become (statistically speaking) the best spinner Australia have ever seen. He ticks all the boxes that a Test cricket fan likes. Tenacity. An appealing backstory. A streak of classically Australian pugnacity. He has it all. He has now got the Australians to have a run against and, on current form, might be able to do a lot of damage. He is joined at the top of the table by the equally tenacious Shaun Marsh, whose late November spurt continues, and the indefatigable Shakib Al Hasan. 

This month has seen the launch of the Mzansi Super League and in an era where not all T20 franchise tournaments are created equal - this one has something close to a heart attached to it. The games have been of the highest quality and an almost perfect mix of domestic South African domestic players, South African international stars and international players have turned out so that all are levels of interest are catered for. The only South African player that is not participating is the injured JP Duminy and it is Mr Consistency himself, Quinton De Kock, that is the MSL's top point scorer this week. A good T20 league should raise the profile of one of that country's best players. We have seen it with Jasprit Bumrah in the IPL and with Pat Brown in the T20 Blast. QDK is clearly more renowned than that but in a year where he would rightfully feel rather overshadowed he is using this fledgling tournament to get back to his best. His 74 from 36 balls in yesterday's game against Jozi was a batting tour de force and his Cape Town team are very much in the driving seat with a 100% win ratio. His 170 points this week sees him overtake JP Duminy and become the highest ranked South African on our overall list. 

Anybody that has been keeping an eye on the T10 league can't help but enjoy it....but we need to question it's validity. A tournament where a 47 year old gets 4 wickets in 5 deliveries has question marks seeping out of every crack in the pitch. I have tried to write this section without showing any bias but it really is a struggle. Thee of our players are featuring in this money fuelled jaunt: Jofra Archer Rashid Khan and Sunil Narine. Archer and Khan are young. They need money. We can forgive them but there is something irritatingly inevitable about Narine's involvement. He is inevitably present. He is inevitably performing the best out of the trio. He is inevitably getting paid through the nose. Those last two points are inevitably linked. The spinner, who has turned his back on the West Indies set up long before his thirtieth birthday, is the most mercenary of all the mercenary Cricketers. This being said he has not done badly for himself this year. He represents one of the four players in our overall top ten who do not represent their national team but is the only one who has not bolstered their points with an extended spell in the County Championship. The player, if selected, may continue this into 2019. He confirmed his involvement in the PSL this week and will, again inevitably, turn up to the IPL and put himself in the shop window yet again for another year of globe-trotting and money grabbing.

Week

Nathan Lyon - 350
Shaun Marsh- 254
Shakib Al Hasan - 230
Quinton De Kock- 170
Mitchell Marsh- 170
Kane Williamson - 140
Simon Harmer -114
Sunil Narine - 105
Jofra Archer - 90
AB De Villiers- 82
Hashim Amla - 71
Aaron Finch - 57
Rashid Khan - 31 
George Bailey - 28
Dean Elgar- 9 
Virat Kohli - 4
Ravi Ashwin- dnp 
Jos Buttler - dnp 
JP Duminy - dnp 
Ravi Jadeja - dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 
Joe Root - dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 6944
Rashid Khan - 5586
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Jos Buttler - 4424
Virat Kohli- 4373
Jofra Archer - 4303
Joe Root - 4127
Sunil Narine- 4043
Aaron Finch - 3864
Kane Williamson - 3684
Ravi Ashwin - 3370
Nathan Lyon - 3326
Ravi Jadeja - 3263
Shakib Al Hasan - 3106
Mitchell Marsh - 2663
Quinton de Kock - 2519
JP Duminy - 2496
Shaun Marsh- 2356
Dean Elgar- 2293
AB De Villiers- 2191
Hashim Amla - 2162
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1115