Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Weekly Round-Up

In some respects, quite a boring week - but in others a stand out one.

First things first is that Simon Harmer has won Cricketer of the Week again courtesy of a score of 438 with 14 wickets in the match between Titans and Lions.

This means he now has 10 Cricketer of the Weeks this year (nobody has ever had more) and 36 in the 5 years we have been doing this. Ben Stokes with 14 is the next highest.

Out of the 20 highest weekly scores ever recorded, Simon Harmer has 6 of them.

This year alone he has got the highest ever score (659 in July) and the 11th highest ever this week.

This means that in those two weeks alone he scored only 196 points fewer than Bhanuka Rajapaksa has in the 19 weeks he has played this year.

He has scored 4306 points in red ball cricket, 2155 more than second placed Ben Stokes.

He has bagged 30% of all the wickets taken by anyone on our list, 40% of the Wicket Bonus points and 23% of the Economy points.

The man is a phenomenon.

On the more underwhelming end of the spectrum, Moeen Ali played no fewer than 6 games of T10 Cricket this week and scored a meagre 88 points across them.

He does, however, extend his total Strike Rate points to 800 - 100 clear of Glenn Maxwell.

Overall

1. Simon Harmer - 5856 - That's it as far as I am concerned. A lead of 5856 with 4 more weeks left in the year is near enough unbeatable. It's a Harmer year once more.

2. Mohammad Rizwan - 4630 - In stasis this week but will pick up points next week for the active game between Pakistan and England.

3. Moeen Ali - 3807 - A week that might kindly be called crap....however Moeen manages to move back into third place.

4. Babar Azam - 3768 - Inactive and down a spot to fourth. Will want to hare back to third for next week.

5. Quinton De Kock - 3493 - It is starting to feel that fifth might just be Quinton's natural resting place this year. 245 points off 6th and not a huge amount of cricket left in the bank.

Top Three Averages

1. Simon Harmer = 195.2 (Up from 186.83)
2. Ben Stokes = 124.86
3. Babar Azam = 129.93

One up one down from our duo this week. Harmer improves his average by 8.37.

Top Players By Format


Long Form - Simon Harmer = 4786
One Day - Travis Head = 1236
Short Form - Moeen Ali = 3255

Highest Points by Discipline

Runs - Mohammad Rizwan - 2660
Batting Bonus - Babar Azam = 530
Strike Rate - Moeen Ali = 800

Wickets - Simon Harmer = 2840
Wicket Bonus - Simon Harmer = 490
Economy - Simon Harmer = 1250

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

Weekly

Simon Harmer 438
Moeen Ali 88

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
Travis Head dnp
Kane Williamson dnp
David Warner dnp
Steve Smith dnp
Hasan Ali dnp
Marnus Labuschagne dnp
Risabh Pant dnp
Pat Cummins dnp
Joe Root dnp


Overall

1 Simon Harmer 5856
2 Mohammad Rizwan 4620
3 Moeen Ali 3807
4 Babar Azam 3768
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

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

Shaun Marsh - The Best Cricketer of the Week

What can you say about Shaun Marsh? After being discarded by Australia - a busted flush after a dire series against Pakistan - he dejectedly returns to Western Australia a broken man .....and scores 178 runs against Tasmania. Great joy and jubilation. The saviour of Australian cricket has returned. South Africa are in town. Call him back up. Let him lead Australia to their new elite future. However wait....no.....he has an abscess in his buttock and needs to withdraw from the squad for surgery. Such is the career trajectory of just one week in the life of Shaun Edward Marsh. Such twists and turns are more likely seen in a Hollywood blockbuster rather than the fields of Perth. With characteristic peculiarity he finds himself back atop the weekly poll as top Cricketer of the Week despite the last few dire showings in the league. The Rocky Balboa of cricket seems unable to hold down his destined place in the international side much to his and his supporters frustrations - this is despite the fact that when he returns to domestic stuff he tears the place apart. In this regard George Bailey is the ying to Marsh's yang. Having averaged 6.2 across his last five innings for Tasmania, the veteran Aussie returned to a (sort of) international team as he captained the Prime Minister's XI against South Africa and impressed many with his score of 51*. So quiet has Bailey's year been that many had forgotten the Tasmanian's unusual stance which led to something of a Twitter frenzy around the old-timer. His 99 points this week (10% of his overall score for the year) sees him break 1000 points in the competition and is now just a mere 5507 away from Simon Harmer. I still believe, George. 

Cast your minds back to when you were young and you may remember a cricket team by the name of New Zealand....and their captain was this bloke called Kane Williamson who has had to rely on Hyderabad and Yorkshire to pick up his points this year. This week, however, New Zealand decided to dust off the old cricket equipment that they had found at the back of their shed and have a good old nostalgic T20 series against Pakistan in the UAE. Just for old times sake. These three T20 matches has seen Williamson look somewhat rusty after a break away from the game but his combined score of 219 across the three games sees him finish third on our weekly table and register his highest score in 13 weeks. His overall position on the table is still pretty consistent with where he was at the start of the IPL season - just clinging on to the top ten. This will change though as Messrs Ashwin, Al Hassan and Lyon are narrowing the gap between the top ten and the chasing pack. Maybe Williamson is returning to international action just in time. 

A while ago I referred to Quinton De Kock as Mr Consistent. A player who, whilst not playing as regularly as he would like, will always deliver when asked. I proved this by highlighting the amount of times he registers three figure point scores for the week. Well, he has done it again this week with 107 across his two games in Australia to continue a slow gentle plod of a year. It has been a disappointing year for the majority of the South Africans on our list (with one notable exception) which sees them all bunched together on the overall table with JP Duminy at the top in 15th and AB De Villiers at the bottom in twentieth. With these players in such close proximity to one another it is tempting to compare them and this week has thrown Dean Elgar up as one of the top performers thanks to a score of 128 for the Titans against the Lions. Elgar finds himself 2 places above De Kock in the overall table but with only a 14 point lead. What will be disappointing for the batsman is the fact that he has played so much more than his compatriot. Elgar's 2222 points comes from 25 active weeks (Average 88.88) whilst De Kock's 2208 comes from 21 active weeks (Average 105.14). This shows that De Kock is more reliable than Elgar. This variance is also shown in a week by week basis. Whilst both of them have a similar amount of three figure scoring weeks (QDK 11 and Elgar 10), Elgar has scored less than fifty points in an active week seven times compared to De Kock's three. In this way it is clear that Elgar is the one that is having the most inconsistent year but De Kock who has been treated poorly, first by Bangalore and now by South Africa. 

Week

Shaun Marsh-248 
Virat Kohli- 236
Kane Williamson - 219 
Ravi Jadeja - 197
Simon Harmer - 180
Joe Root- 175
Dean Elgar - 168
Ravi Ashwin - 165
Quinton De Kock- 107
George Bailey - 99
Jos Buttler - 92
Mitchell Marsh- 81
Aaron Finch- 26
Nathan Lyon - 24 
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Hashim Amla - dnp 
Jofra Archer - dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Rashid Khan - dnp 
Sunil Narine - dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 6587
Rashid Khan - 5555
Jeetan Patel - 5311
Virat Kohli- 4369
Jos Buttler - 4194
Sunil Narine- 3938
Joe Root - 3841
Aaron Finch - 3718
Jofra Archer - 3578
Kane Williamson - 3506
Ravi Ashwin - 3370
Shakib Al Hasan - 2886
Nathan Lyon - 2751
Ravi Jadeja - 2717
JP Duminy - 2496
Dean Elgar- 2222
Mitchell Marsh - 2217
Quinton de Kock - 2208
Hashim Amla - 2091
AB De Villiers- 2010
Shaun Marsh- 1904
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
George Bailey - 1080