Sam Curran - The Best Cricketer of the Week....Again

 

Weekly Top 5

1. Sam Curran - 223 - Back to back Cricketers of the Week in two different formats of the game is pretty impressive stuff from the England discard. He has scored 550 points in the last fortnight.

2. Suryakumar Yadav - 147 - Didn't take Mumbai to the final but SKY was the biggest beneficiary of the IPL. His tournament haul of 1347 is more than 100 points more than anyone else scored in that time. In that period he has moved from 17th to 8th overall.

3. Jamie Smith - 134 - bit of a wonky week for Jamie Smith. 0 runs in the 2nd ODI and then all his points in the second. Enough for his highest weekly placing of the year and to see him move into 22nd Overall.

4. Liam Dawson - 129 - Just the solitary game for Dawson this week but he got a fourfer against Essex and sees himself with his third three figure score in the last 4 weeks. Loving the English Summer. Next up, England?

5. Yashasvi Jaiswal - 128 - A change of format for Jaiswal but still keeping his eye in. 88 runs across two innings against the England Lions sees him squeak into the Top 5 for the week.

Overall Top 5

1. Nat Sciver-Brunt - 1976 - Increases her lead in first place to 188 points courtesy of 104 points against West Indies Women. That gap is the second largest after the 293 between Travis Head in 16th and Harry Brook one below him.

2. Ravindra Jadeja - 1788 - Holds on to his second place berth by just 5 points. Could drop as low as 6th with his second inactive week next week.

3. Jos Buttler - 1766 - 101 points this week keeps him in 3rd place and fighting off a bit of a domestic cricket insurgency from below. Only 5 points off him and 4th place.

4. Sam Curran - 1761 - Over half a thousand points in a fortnight has seen Curran surge up the table from 11th to grace the Top 5 for the first time in 9 weeks.

5. Liam Dawson - 1751 - The Hampshire man makes his debut in the Top 5 just before he makes his prospective return to playing for England. Poetic.

Other Movers


Harry Brook's fine English Summer sees him continue to rise, up two to 17th. Meanwhile Kane Williamson and Liam Livingstone are both up a place t0 15th and 20th respectively.

Top 3 Averages

1. Sam Curran - 160.09 (Up from 153.8)
2. Nat Sciver-Brunt – 152 (Down from 156)
3. Chamari Athapaththu -143.6

Jamie Smith moves up by 8.67 this week, making his average 73.38 per active week whilst Bumrah's flacid end to the IPL sees him drop by 6.42 down to 71.33. They have the fifth and sixth worst averages of anyone on the List.

Top Players By Format

Red Ball - Liam Dawson - 1030
One Day - Kane Williamson - 655
Short Form - Nicholas Pooran - 1637

Top Players by Discipline

* = New Name

Runs - Jos Buttler = 936
Batting Bonus - Nat Sciver-Brunt = 180
Strike Rate – *Suryakumar Yadav - 500

Wickets - Wanindu Hasaranga = 740
Wicket Bonus - Ravindra Jadeja & Wanindu Hasaranga - 100
Economy - Liam Dawson = 390

Fielding - Phil Salt - 260
Fielding Bonus -Phil Salt – 30

Weekly List In Full

Sam Curran 223
Suryakumar Yadav 147
Jamie Smith 134
Liam Dawson 129
Yashasvi Jaiwal 128
Harry Brook 123
Saim Ayub 119
Nat Sciver-Brunt 104
Jos Buttler 101
Liam Livingstone 65
Kane Williamson 45
Phil Salt 26
Jasprit Bumrah 20

Annabel Sutherland dnp
Adam Zampa dnp
Chamari Athapaththu dnp
Babar Azam dnp
Pathum Nissanka dnp
Wanindu Hasaranga dnp
Heinrich Klaasen dnp
Rishabh Pant dnp
Travis Head dnp
Ravindra Jadeja dnp
Nicholas Pooran dnp

Overall List In Full

1 Nat Sciver-Brunt 1976
2 Ravindra Jadeja 1788
3 Jos Buttler 1766
4 Sam Curran 1761
5 Liam Dawson 1751
6 Heinrich Klaasen 1640
7 Nicholas Pooran 1637
8 Suryakumar Yadav 1607
9 Phil Salt 1497
10 Chamari Athapaththu 1436
11 Yashasvi Jaiwal 1314
12 Wanindu Hasaranga 1259
13 Babar Azam 1232
14 Annabel Sutherland 1197
15 Kane Williamson 1097
16 Travis Head 1073
17 Harry Brook 780
18 Pathum Nissanka 724
19 Rishabh Pant 678
20 Liam Livingstone 668
21 Jasprit Bumrah 622
22 Jamie Smith 587
23 Adam Zampa 578
24 Saim Ayub 553

Lewis Gregory - The Best Cricketer of the Week

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

David Warner - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Word on the street was that David Warner was on the out and out. From his highest position of fourth in Week 3, Warner had had 5 weeks of decline in the table culminating in last week's low of seventeenth - third from bottom. Some of this can be put down to three inactive weeks however sandwiched either side of those inactive periods was a score of just 3 points in the last ODI with India and just 4 points from the first T20 against South Africa. It is difficult to know just where to expect Warner to finish this season. His only previous showing on our list was third place in 2018 when he only played the first two and a half months of the year - however third from bottom is not indicative of his skill. This week we have seen a dynamic surge up the table and his first ever Cricketer of the Week accolade. His double half centuries in back to back T20Is sees him lurch from that low base of seventeenth into a slightly more respectable thirteenth spot. It has been an over all good week for the Australian. As well as his performances on the field, there have been signs of good things to come as he was reappointed Hyderabad's captain for the IPL. This forebodes more regular T20 games just around the corner and (perhaps) the chance to score big points. Does a top ten place beckon?

It's been quite a week for Australians with our antipodean contingent moving up a cumulative twelve places in the overall list. Two other players who have used the T20I series against South Africa as an opportunity to move up the table are Steve Smith and Aaron Finch. In a remarkable show of synchronicity, both players scored 119 points to finish in joint fifth for the week. Having never happened in the last two years of these posts, this is the second time that two players have got the exact same amount of points in a week this year. Whilst their scores were exactly the same, their performances with the bat were different. Finch, who moves from tenth place into seventh on the overall list, had one big score of 55 and a disappointing score of 14. On the other hand Steve Smith contributed with two solid contributions of 29 and 30 which saw him move back into the top 5 after two weeks in seventh spot. What this is starting to show is that Australia are forming quite the formidable top three in preparation for the World Cup. If David Warner and Aaron Finch go big as they did in the third T20, Steve Smith can then go on and act as the anchor. If the openers do not do well, Smith can step up. By the time the World Cup roles around in August I would expect to see all three batsmen in the top ten - and from there....who knows?

As we approach the end of February we need to see who has made the month their own. Only four players have made two or more weeks of solid progression up the Overall List this month. Keshav Maharaj has moved from 11th to 1st and has made progress in every week of February so he is perhaps the obvious candidate for a Cricketer of the Month award. As previously mentioned, Aaron Finch has used the T20 series against a weak South Africa side to move up the table for the last two weeks whilst Travis Head has been quietly accumulating points to move from 14th to 10th throughout February. However the player who has been an underground success on our list is Lewis Gregory who has featured for the England Lions and Peshawar throughout February and has moved up from 16th at the start of the month to eleventh this month - an improvement of 386 points. Whilst Maharaj is the obvious success of February, his reward is the top spot on the overall list. Lewis Gregory needs recognition for the sheer amount of performances he has put in -playing in all three formats of the game and all over the world.

Week

David Warner - 214
Martin Guptill- 195
Keshav Maharaj- 180
Tom Banton - 131
Aaron Finch - 119
Steve Smith - 119
Travis Head- 118
Lewis Gregory - 116
Babar Azam - 79
Jason Holder - 55
Peter Handscomb - 37
Virat Kohli- 31

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann- dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Mohammad Nabi - dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp

Overall

Keshav Maharaj - 1094
Martin Guptill - 1082
Ben Stokes - 1062
Steve Smith - 846
Joe Root - 829
Virat Kohli - 760
Aaron Finch - 759
Shubman Gill - 752
Marnus Labuschagne - 685
Travis Head - 681
Lewis Gregory - 667
Glenn Maxwell - 650
David Warner - 620
Mohammad Nabi - 590
Tom Banton - 543
Babar Azam - 486
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 347
Jason Holder- 167

Keshav Maharaj - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Besides the ever growing gap between Stokes and the chasing field, the top five has shifted Week to Week over the first couple of months of 2020. Stokes has now been number one on the overall list for four weeks. In his first week at top spot he had a huge lead on second place Marnus Labuschagne, in Week two and three Martin Guptill was pushing him for top spot and this week a player has come out of nowhere to challenge the England all-rounder. Keshav Maharaj is a known prospect to Stokes - and in their most recent on-field battle the South African was rather found out - however Maharaj looks something of an unstoppable force in the Momentum One Day Cup. This week he jumped from 6th place to second off the back of a solitary game where the Dolphins player bagged a half century and a Fourier against the Cape Cobras - a handy 200 points to see him surge up the table once again. At the start of February, Maharaj was in 12th position but three weeks of improvement up the table have seen him rise to 148 points of the top spot. So far in this tournament he has taken 11 wickets in 5 matches, second only to Thando Ntini who has just one more despite playing two more games. He is also coupling this with an average of over 50 with the bat. Maharaj really isn't playing games this year and is following in the footsteps of Glenn Maxwell who got to top spot last year with impressive all round performance. Stokes will not play for England again for four weeks and in that time Maharaj's Dolphins will have played at least three times. It is a very real possibility that the South African could take top spot as soon as next week - or could he be the third challenger to fade away in the style of Guptill and Labuschagne?

Now we have seen a return to long form cricket in Australia, we have seen some of our less prolific Aussies come to the fore again. The highest score from an Australian this week did not come from their T20 mauling of South Africa but instead from the more prosaic match up between South and Western Australia. Travis Head has had a mixed year; after a huge score at the back end of 2019 his performances have been variable in 2020. Never higher than 9th on the overall list, he slid as far down the league as 14th last week before 95 runs split across two innings against Western Australia saw him acquire 105 points for the week and finish fifth on the weekly list. This could easily have been at least 20 points more if he had inched over the half century threshold at least once - falling short by four runs in the first innings and a solitary run in the second. Unlucky possibly but luck has certainly been on his side already this year. This week's score is not his highest for 2020 as Head won Cricketer of the Week in Week 5 for four games in the BBL - edging out Matin Guptill thanks to sheer weight of games played. Where he gained points that week he has potentially lost some this. What is impressive is the versatility of Head; finishing in the top five for the Week twice - once for T20 cricket and once for the longest form. There is a belief that he is the sort of player that could plug a gap in the middle order of Australia's ODI side - if that comes to pass he could be a top ten prospect very easily.

Due to this being a T20 World Cup year, our list has had more of a short form focus this year than in previous. This has seen far greater number of bodies turning out for PSL franchises than we have ever had before. Peshawar is likely to be our principle focus over the next month or so as both Tom Banton and Lewis Gregory are turning out for the North-Western Pakistan franchise, however this week Banton scored a mere 13 runs and an injury picked up with the England Lions has stopped Gregory from making his debut. Instead our focus is on one of Pakistan's favourite sons, Babar Azam. Due to lack of game time Azam has been propping up the table and even his century against Bangladesh only saw him jump up a solitary spot. He will be hoping to use the PSL as a spring board up the table and has started the competition brightly with 78 for Karachi against Peshawar. This has seen him gain another place on the overall list. As it stands he is in 16th place, with a disappointing looking Tom Banton 5 points ahead of him and an inactive Rohit Sharma 64 points ahead. Another couple of decent performances will catapult Azam closer to where he should be - a firm top ten prospect.

Week

Keshav Maharaj- 200
Babar Azam - 118
Jason Holder - 112
Ben Stokes- 112
Travis Head - 105
Lewis Gregory - 85
Aaron Finch - 82
Peter Handscomb-71
Steve Smith- 65
Marnus Labuschagne- 36
Tom Banton - 23
David Warner - 14
Shubman Gill - 8
Martin Guptill- 0
Virat Kohli - 0

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp

Overall

Ben Stokes - 1062
Keshav Maharaj - 914
Martin Guptill - 887
Joe Root - 829
Shubman Gill - 752
Virat Kohli - 729
Steve Smith - 727
Marnus Labuschagne - 685
Glenn Maxwell - 650
Aaron Finch - 640
Mohammad Nabi - 590
Travis Head - 563
Lewis Gregory - 551
Rohit Sharma - 471
Tom Banton - 412
Babar Azam - 407
David Warner - 406
Peter Handscomb - 310
Jason Holder- 112