Travis Head - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

A lot of movement this week after a long period of rigidity....who has done well?

Weekly

1. Travis Head - 231 - The rebirth of Travis Head gives him his second Cricketer of the Week Award for 2022 and his third of all time. Really does look in fine form as an opener and had a record-breaking week alongside David Warner.

=2. Kane Williamson = 225 = Seems to be awakening from his malaise towards the end of the year. Two matches in two different disciplines with two half century scores sees him joint second for the week. Up a place to 20th overall.

=2. Simon Harmer = 225 - Back in the wickets in long from cricket, just as God intended. A fourfer against Knights was the highlight of his week.

4. David Warner - 172 - His second week in the Top 5 in a row. Loving life at the moment and moves up two places to 12th courtesy of a century stand in the final ODI against England.

5. Steve Smith - 165 - Nearly 300 points from three games is not to be sniffed at....especially considering Smith's form so far this year. His last innings let him down a bit and he just squeaks into the Top 5 this week.

Overall

1. Simon Harmer - 5418 - You would think Cricketer of the Year would have to be his this year. His lead is now back up to 798 - the highest it has been in 2 months.

2. Mohammad Rizwan - 4620 - Inactive this week as he girds his loins for the Test series against England.

3. Babar Azam - 3768 - Bit of danger from below for the inactive Pakistan captain but he manages to hold onto third place for the fourth week.

4. Moeen Ali – 3719 – Manages just 79 points across three games in two continents. Is crawling towards third place rather than sprinting.

5. Quinton De Kock – 3493 – Inactive for a month now but has zero pressure from below so holds 5th for the 7th week.

Other Movers

Hasan Ali moves up two places to 10th; his highest spot for the year.

Rishabh Pant takes advantage of Glenn Maxwell’s misfortune to move up to 6th despite 92 points this week.

Top Three Averages

1. Simon Harmer = 186.83 (Up from 185.46)
2. Ben Stokes = 124.86
3. Babar Azam = 129.93

Joe Root used to go to town in warm up matches....but only managed 9 this week to see his average fall by 5.33 points to 120.77 a week. Kane Williamon swells his average by 7.48 to 75.33.

Top Players By Format


Long Form - Simon Harmer = 4348
One Day - Travis Head = 1236
Short Form - Moeen Ali = 3255

Highest Points by Discipline

* = New Name


Runs - Mohammad Rizwan - 2660
Batting Bonus - Babar Azam = 530
Strike Rate - Moeen Ali = 770

Wickets - Simon Harmer = 2560
Wicket Bonus - Simon Harmer = 430
Economy - Simon Harmer = 1190

Fielding - *Rishabh Pant = 730
Fielding Bonus - Rishabh Pant = 110`

Weekly

Travis Head 231
Kane Williamson 225
Simon Harmer 225
David Warner 172
Steve Smith 165
Hasan Ali 148
Marnus Labuschagne 116
Risabh Pant 92
Moeen Ali 79
Pat Cummins 70
Joe Root 9

Kyle Jamieson dnp
Jonny Bairstow dnp
Matt Critchley dnp
Glenn Maxwell dnp
KL Rahul dnp
Bhanuka Rajapaksa dnp
Quinton De Kock dnp
Ben Stokes dnp
Babar Azam dnp
Mohammad Rizwan dnp

Overall

1 Simon Harmer 5418
2 Mohammad Rizwan 4620
3 Babar Azam 3768
4 Moeen Ali 3719
5 Quinton De Kock 3493
6 Rishabh Pant 3327
7 Glenn Maxwell 3248
8 Ben Stokes 3234
9 Marnus Labuschagne 2917
10 Hasan Ali 2696
11 Joe Root 2657
12 David Warner 2630
13 Jonny Bairstow 2593
14 Matt Critchley 2473
15 KL Rahul 2460
16 Pat Cummins 2374
17 Travis Head 2019
18 Steve Smith 1829
19 Kane Williamson 1582
20 Kyle Jamieson 1547
21 Bhanuka Rajapaksa 1308

Lewis Gregory - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Through a combination of injury, players being rested and the cessation of the BBL, we have seen the number of non active players jump up hugely this week. We have also seen the list settling down rather. Only four players made any movement on the overall list and we saw a few players make double figure scores and yet it not have an effect on their overall position. This did not apply to our Cricketer of the Week who used an A team tour for it's exact purpose - to showcase your abilities against a weak opponent. Lewis Gregory is an undoubtedly talented player and should feel most aggrieved that he happened to reach his cricketing maturation at the same time as Ben Stokes was the most dominant force in world cricket (and the leader of our overall List). In many ways Gregory does exactly what Stokes does....just a little bit worse. His performance this week against a New South Wales XI had a Stokesian aspect to it. Two wickets at an economy of 3.29 plus a 34 ball 55 and a catch in the field is an all round performance that even the Durham man would be proud of. But the difference is that it was against a second string Sheffield Shield side who had three players making their debut. In order to shrug off the mantle of being a store brand Stokes, he needs to be doing this more regularly. His average weekly score for his three active weeks before this week was 93.66 - decent, but this was still against teams of the calibre of a Cricket Australia XI and Dhaka. This week saw him jump from sixteenth to thirteenth and he is already chasing the pack from the top ten. It is still early days for the Somerset player but he needs to up his game to be a force on our List. He is going to be a key player for Peshawar in the PSL which will help, but he will need to improve on his 292 runs he gained for Rangpur in the BPL.

So that is the highest scoring player for the week, however he wasn't the biggest mover up the overall table. That accolade goes to two players I wrote about last week: Shubman Gill and Keshav Maharaj. Gill was a player that I have consistently questioned the consistency of however over the last fortnight he has scored back to back centuries for (what I believe is) the first time in his career. He really is picking up some momentum in his international career and may be forcing his way into a Test berth for the men in blue - especially with the injury to twelfth place Rohit Sharma. This has been reflected in his surge up the table. Last week he bumped his way up the table from seventeenth to ninth; this week he has improved his position by a further five to find himself in fourth position overall. Sandwiched between the figures of Joe Root in third and Virat Kohli in fifth is a very lofty position for the boy from Punjab; how long can he keep his foot on the accelerator? Maharaj also followed in Gill's footsteps with his second top five finish in a row and a five place improvement on the overall table largely thanks to one of his two matches for the Dolphins in the Momentum One Day Cup. His four wickets at an economy of 3.20 coupled with a catch against the bottom of the table Knights saw his dominant franchise continue their impressive spell in the competition and continue to force his own personal agenda as a spinner of high quality. We are used to seeing a South African bowler on the up and up on this list - however it is usually Simon Harmer, who is pointless thus far in the year. We are not even a quarter of the way through this franchise competition yet and with the South African spinner fifteen points off a top five position I wouldn't be surprised to see more progression from the joint highest wicket taker of the tournament.

I said the overall list was settling down quite nicely and Babar Azam is proof of this. Azam is one of the hottest prospects in world cricket but has only featured in two games so far this year - scoring 116 points in one game and zero in the other. At the start of the week he was rock bottom of active players. His impeccable Day Two performance for Pakistan in their First Test against Bangladesh was one of the more high profile performances of the Week and when he went to stumps many were salivating over a potential double ton - however this did not come to pass. Despite this he still finished fourth with 173 points for the week and was part of the 12 point pile up between 1st and 4th. This success for the week has not had the desired impact on his overall placing for the year, however, as he moved up just one place, leap-frogging Peter Handscomb into seventeenth position. Looking further up the table he is another 100 points of sixteenth place Tom Banton - already a gulf is starting to form at the bottom of the table. There will be a lot of cricket to play for Azam as he joins up with Karachi for the PSL, finishes the series with Bangladesh and, ultimately, rejoins Somerset - he will not be this close to the bottom when the final tally is counted. This gulf is probably more concerning for our four inactive players; Kyle Abott, Colin Ackermann, Simon Harmer and Jason Holder. If a top five performance sees you sluggishly crawl from bottom to second bottom, these four players, who are already 239 points (and counting) below our least effective active player they have got a world of catching up to do when they join the melee.

Week

Lewis Gregory - 185
Keshav Maharaj - 184
Shubman Gill - 176
Babar Azam- 173
Ben Stokes - 141
Martin Guptill- 106
Joe Root - 69
Tom Banton - 62
Virat Kohli - 29

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann - dnp
Aaron Finch- dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Travis Head - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Rohit Sharma- dnp
Steve Smith - dnp
David Warner - dnp

Overall

Ben Stokes - 950
Martin Guptill - 887
Joe Root - 829
Shubman Gill - 744
Virat Kohli - 729
Keshav Maharaj - 714
Steve Smith - 662
Glenn Maxwell - 650
Marnus Labuschagne - 649
Mohammad Nabi - 590
Aaron Finch - 558
Rohit Sharma - 471
Lewis Gregory - 466
Travis Head - 458
David Warner - 392
Tom Banton - 389
Babar Azam - 289
Peter Handscomb - 239

Mitchell Marsh - The Best Cricketer of the Week

If you have a plan that works then you should stick to it. The Marsh brothers have a plan that works and they've stuck to it. The plan takes place in a mere three weeks. Firstly you disappoint for your national team to the point where people question your position. You then return to your domestic club and play an absolute blinder, winning the Cricketer of the Week in the process. Lastly you return to the national team triumphant and lead them to glory. The elder Marsh brother completed the three step Marsh plan this morning, whilst his younger brother is lagging behind on Stage 2. After a torrid time in the UAE, Mitchell returned to Western Australia and was instrumental in his team racking up 540 on a Brisbane pitch that seemed tailor made for runs. It remains to be seen whether Stage Three will come quite as quickly for Mitchell as it did for Shaun, who top scored with 106 runs in this morning's ODI with South Africa. Instead he may have to resign himself to racking up points with carefree abandon in the Sheffield Shield until the India series. Overall he has jumped Dean Elgar to move into 16th place - more domestic triumph could see him overhaul the injured JP Duminy. 

Another week of dominance for Simon Harmer and the resurgence of Nathan Lyon has yet again proved how a high economy is key to scoring big week in and week out. The South African spinner got 14 maidens in his game for the Warriors vs the Knights, whilst his Australian counterpart got 13 for New South Wales versus Tasmania. This has seen the pair finish second and third in the weekly table and has also seen Harmer extend his lead over Rashid Khan to 1275 with eight weeks left in the year. It may be the time to call Simon Harmer as the undefeated champion of cricket in 2019. As I said two weeks ago, the double award of points for maidens and economies will come to an end when the list is deselected for 2019. In the new formula for 2019, Harmer would have been awarded 173 points and finished two places lower with Lyon getting 180 and leapfrogging him into third. However this is a conversation for next year, this year we need to revel in the bowling heroics of Simon Ross Harmer. 

These posts are not a place for self-aggrandisement but.....I was right. I was bloody right. Last week I christened Dean Elgar as Mr Inconsistent whilst dubbing his national colleague Quinton de Kock as his antithesis. What happened this week? He followed his 128 runs for the Titans against the Lions with a duck in the fixture against the Dolphins. This saw the batsman pick up just ten points for a catch. Subsequently we have seen him go from his third highest score of 2018 last week to his second lowest this. This has seen him lose two places in the overall table as Mitchell Marsh and...well would you believe it...Quinton De Kock overtake him. Elgar is now 18th in the overall league. But this is not the only prophesying that I did last week. I pointed out that George Bailey was the antithesis to Shaun Marsh in as much as he performed well in a quasi national team but flops domestically. Bailey then returns to his domestic side and scores the heady total of 7 runs across his two innings. In an Elgar-like move this saw him score 10% of his total last time out to scoring his lowest ever total this week. After a year of wayward predictions I seem to have saved up all my accuracy for one week. 

Week

Mitchell Marsh- 276 
Simon Harmer - 243
Nathan Lyon - 225
Shaun Marsh - 198
Jos Buttler - 103 
Quinton De Kock - 73
Aaron Finch- 62
Joe Root - 48
Kane Williamson - 38
Dean Elgar - 10
George Bailey - 7
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Hashim Amla- dnp 
Jofra Archer- dnp 
Ravi Ashwin- dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Ravi Jadeja- dnp 
Rashid Khan - dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Sunil Narine- dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 
Steve Smith- dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 6830
Rashid Khan - 5555
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Virat Kohli- 4369
Jos Buttler - 4297
Sunil Narine- 3938
Joe Root - 3889
Aaron Finch - 3780
Jofra Archer - 3578
Kane Williamson - 3544
Ravi Ashwin - 3370
Nathan Lyon - 2976
Shakib Al Hasan - 2886
Ravi Jadeja - 2717
JP Duminy - 2496
Mitchell Marsh - 2493
Quinton de Kock - 2281
Dean Elgar- 2232
Shaun Marsh- 2102
Hashim Amla - 2091
AB De Villiers- 2010
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1087

Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

What with no completed Test matches this week, there is a severe paucity of cricket to write about this week. In fact only five of our Cricketers played. Despite this, it does not detract from two outstanding performances in domestic cricket for two outstanding spinners. Between them Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel got thirteen wickets. This week's cricketer of the week, Simon Harmer, bagged the lion's share with 8 for the Warriors against the Knights with Patel chipping in a fivefer in his first innings for Wellington against Central Districts. Both of these domestic stalwarts have coupled their wicket taking impetus with rock bottom economies, with Patel's figures of 19-12-13-0 being the most eye-catching. The spin twins are having fans of the County Championship salivating with the hope they will continue this fine form in the coming months. 

Another 330 points for Rashid Khan further extends his dominance in the overall table despite his team's poor form in the World Cup Qualifiers. He is also the first player to break the 2000 point barrier in the overall point league, with Simon Harmer 52 points away from that accolade. In what has been a very wicket heavy week for the top scorers in the weekly league, the Afghanistan spinner bagged 8 in two games - meaning that the top three for the week shared 21 wickets between them in their three different tournaments. Whilst he will be at a personal low, Rashid can cling on to a great stat. The spinner has by far the highest wicket tally for any player after 43 ODIS at 99 - with 12 more than second place Mitchell Starc.

Ending the big hitters section, we can now look at two Cricketers who played but maybe did not contribute as much as they'd have liked. Shakib Al Hassan played in the final of the Nidahas Trophy and, with a great sense of deja vu, did exactly the same as he did the previous week - scored 7 runs and got one wicket. This gave him his second consecutive score of 27. Despite the relatively small total posted, due to the lack of other cricket going on this week, he has still moved up the table two places to sit in sixteenth place. On top of this today is his birthday - a welcome present for the 31 year old. 

But one player who will be disappointed is JP Duminy - who joins the small list of players who have played a game but scored zero points. Going against Cricket South Africa, Duminy decided to join his Islamabad teammates in Pakistan and - despite the potential risk - did not bat nor bowl. Up until this point Duminy was the only player to have registered points in every game week - an impressive spell brought to an end. 

Week

Simon Harmer - 355
Jeetan Patel - 340
Rashid Khan - 280
Shakib Al Hasan - 27
Hashim Amla - dnp 
Jofra Archer - dnp 
Ravi Ashwin - dnp
George Bailey - dnp 
Jos Buttler - dnp 
Quinton de Kock- dnp 
AB De Villiers - dnp 
JP Duminy - dnp 
Dean Elgar - dnp 
Aaron Finch - dnp 
Ravi Jadeja- dnp 
Virat Kohli - dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh - dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 
Sunil Narine - dnp 
Joe Root - dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Rashid Khan - 2038
Simon Harmer - 1948
JP Duminy - 1659
Sunil Narine- 1450
Joe Root - 1308
Mitchell Marsh - 1245
Virat Kohli- 1231
Nathan Lyon - 1225
Jos Buttler - 1026
Aaron Finch - 999
Kane Williamson -906
Jeetan Patel - 884
Ravi Ashwin - 878
AB De Villiers- 778
Quinton de Kock - 670
Shakib Al Hasan - 662
David Warner - 650
Steve Smith - 633
Hashim Amla - 598
George Bailey - 560
Dean Elgar- 557
Jofra Archer - 550
Shaun Marsh- 506
Ravi Jadeja - 412