Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 Weekly

1. Simon Harmer - 257 - Harmer ends his County Championship season with his eight Cricketer of the Week award. He has never won more. Has had a quieter season (by comparison) but still is the man to beat.

2. Mohammad Rizwan - 231 - His impressive form has been so impressive that he can miss out a T20 game and still finish second courtesy of two half centuries. Has been a great start to the last third of the year for the Pakistan wicket keeper.

3. Babar Azam - 192 - More inconsistent than he would like but always provides one big score to boost him up into the Top 5. This week it was the 87* out in the 6th T20 against England.

4. Moeen Ali - 160 - Another week where he features in the Top 5....but that is rather through weight of games played than any huge amount of excellence from the England stand-in captain. His half century in the 5th T20 is his high point.

5. KL Rahul - Sneaks into the Top 5 this week with a long gap between him and fourth place. Second time he's made 5th spot in a row though.

Overall

1. Simon Harmer - 4778 -No news if he is going to play domestically in South Africa yet and his lead is 'just' 835 with the T20 World Cup on the horizon. All this being said, 19 weeks in first position is mightily impressive.

2. Mohammad Rizwan - 3943 - Keeps scoring big and putting pressure on first place - now has a huge gap of 494 points on third spot.

3, Moeen Ali - 3449 - Retains third spot for the 5th week on the trot. Quietly grinding away 100+ scores week after week after week.

4. Babar Azam - 3238 - Up a place to 4th - his highest position for 20 weeks. Can he continue to push his agenda in amongst a cluster of players who will all be featuring in the T20 World Cup?

5. Rishabh Pant - 3131 - Had a sub-par Asia Cup and then has struggled ever since. The last 4 weeks has seen him inactive once, scoring 0 twice and a mere 10 points this week sees him drop down to 5th; his lowest position in 3 months.

Other Movers

Just the 20 points for Pat Cummins this week...but he was 19 points behind David Warner and is subsequently up a spot to 13th.

Top Three Averages

1. Simon Harmer = 207.74 (Up from 205.5)
2. Ben Stokes = 151.33
3. Babar Azam = 147.18 (Up from 145.05)

Mohammad Rizwan's good form sees his stock continue to rise. He now has the fourth best points per week of any of our players - 131.43. Steve Smith's meagre week sees his averagr frop by 6.23 points - down to 93.44.

Top Players By Format


Long Form - Simon Harmer = 4063
One Day - Babar Azam = 1002
Short Form - Moeen Ali = 3053

Highest Points by Discipline

* = New Name

Runs - Mohammad Rizwan - 2283
Batting Bonus - Babar Azam & *Mohammad Rizwan = 470
Strike Rate - Moeen Ali = 700

Wickets - Simon Harmer = 2280
Wicket Bonus - Simon Harmer = 410
Economy - Simon Harmer = 1020

Fielding - Rishabh Pant = 650
Fielding Bonus - Rishabh Pant = 110

Weekly List

Simon Harmer 257
Mohammad Rizwan 231
Babar Azam 192
Moeen Ali 160
KL Rahul 93
Travis Head 84
Hasan Ali 44
Matt Critchley 32
Quinton De Kock 21
Pat Cummins 20
Risabh Pant 10
Marnus Labuschagne 10

Kyle Jamieson dnp
Jonny Bairstow dnp
David Warner dnp
Ben Stokes dnp
Bhanuka Rajapaksa dnp
Joe Root dnp
Kane Williamson dnp

Overall

1 Simon Harmer 4778
2 Mohammad Rizwan 3943
3 Moeen Ali 3449
4 Babar Azam 3238
5 Rishabh Pant 3131
6 Quinton De Kock 2990
7 Glenn Maxwell 2838
8 Ben Stokes 2724
9 Joe Root 2648
10 Jonny Bairstow 2593
11 Marnus Labuschagne 2534
12 Matt Critchley 2473
13 Pat Cummins 1943
14 David Warner 1942
15 KL Rahul 1864
16 Hasan Ali 1831
17 Kyle Jamieson 1547
18 Steve Smith 1495
19 Travis Head 1398
20 Bhanuka Rajapaksa 1056
21 Kane Williamson 780

Babar Azam - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

Weekly Top 5

1. Babar Azam - 164 - The cancellation of the Test series against England had one upside for Babar. A chance to pick up huge points in the National T20 Cup as he did last year. He has started brightly here. 

2. Jasprit Bumrah - 121 - Bumrah didn't light up the first leg of IPL 2021 but has brought his electric Test performances in to the shortest form. However 121 is the third lowest weekly top score we've ever had.

3. Virat Kohli - 118 - A poor performance and a good performance sees Kohli finish second in a low-scoring week.

4. Quinton De Kock - 112 - QDK is having something of a resurgence in third quarter of the year and keeps on getting these top 5 finishes.

5. Simon Harmer - 65 - Harmer's scoring dropped off towards the ned of the County Championship but this week has been so low scoring that a score of 65 is enough for fourth.



Overall Top 5

1. Simon Harmer - 4392 - Lower scores against Surrey and Northamptonshire means that Harmer's lead at the top is 559. With the Australian domestic season starting that does not feel enough.

2. Marnus Labuschagne - 3833 - This is Marnus eighth and last inactive week - now begins the graft to get back first place.

3. Joe Root - 3614 - The cancellation of the Pakistan tour means that Root's point scoring opportunities have been removed for a while. Is the 679 point between him and fourth spot bridgeable?

4. Babar Azam - 3083- Holds off a charge by QDK. With the two of them in T20 competitions for the next few weeks could be an intriguing dogfight.  

5. Quinton De Kock - 2935 - Three months ago QDK was in the bottom 3. He now moves up to fourth place after spending 10 of the past 12 weeks in 5th. It is his highest position since the first week of January.


Ones to Watch

The resumption of the Australian Domestic Season will see two key players back on the scene. Peter Handscomb is just 25 points off of 10th place Ben Stokes - but has Virat Kohli 17 behind him. Who will claim that top ten spot?

There is a similar battle slightly further down as 13th placed Peter Siddle has a 15 point lead on resurgent Jasprit Bumrah. That litttle cluster just outside the Top Ten could be worth monitoring.

Highest Players by Format


Long Form - Joe Root - 3140
50 Over - Simon Harmer - 954
T20 - Babar Azam - 2061

Top 3 Averages

1. Marnus Labuschagne - 191.65
2. Simon Harmer - 190.96 (Down from 196.68)
3. Ravichandran Ashwin - 176.36 (Down from 189.4)

Ashwin's switch from long to short form cricket sees him fall a huge 13.04 points per week - but still holds onto his third place spot overall. Virat Kohli improves his meagre average by 1.31 to 95.72.

Highest Points by Discipline


Runs - Joe Root - 2074
Batting Bonus - Babar Azam - 420
Strike Rate - Nicholas Pooran - 580

Wickets = Simon Harmer= 1880
Wicket Bonus - Simon Harmer - 330
Economy - Simon Harmer - 1050

Fielding – Quinton De Kock – 620
Fielding Bonus - Quinton De Kock - 100

Longest Inactive

David Warner has finally played....not that you would have notice....so the longest inactive player is Steve Smith who has had 20 weeks out the game.

Weekly List

Simon Harmer 4392
Marnus Labuschagne 3833
Joe Root 3614

Babar Azam 3083
Quinton De Kock 2935
Moeen Ali 2731
Nicholas Pooran 2381
Dawid Malan 2010
Ravichandran Ashwin 1940
Ben Stokes 1765
Peter Handscomb 1740
Virat Kohli 1723
Peter Siddle 1577
Jasprit Bumrah 1562
Glenn Maxwell 1329
Kane Williamson 1059
Steve Smith 1010
David Warner 844

Overall List

Babar Azam 164
Jasprit Bumrah 121
Virat Kohli 118
Quinton De Kock 112
Simon Harmer 65
Nicholas Pooran 60
Moeen Ali 53
Ravichandran Ashwin 46
Glenn Maxwell 41
Kane Williamson 39
David Warner 2

Marnus Labuschagne dnp
Ben Stokes dnp
Peter Handscomb dnp
Peter Siddle dnp
Steve Smith dnp
Joe Root dnp
Dawid Malan dnp

Joe Root - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

By the time these cold Autumn months are drawing in the County Cricket season is usually done and dusted. The long form season would have just finished and the T20 Blast would be a halcyon dream of mid Summer heat. So to the men's international season would be consigned to nostalgic remembrance. This has not been the case this year. We see the T20 Blast final in October and the International summer has just finished. This means that some players have taken unique pathways across competitions; ones we have not seen before and likely will not see again. Joe Root is a classic example of this. He began the week in England's bio-secure bubble and ended it playing for Yorkshire in the T20 Blast. This is not the only way his week has varied. If you had told me that Joe Root would have won Cricketer of the Week after his solitary point in the first ODI I would have told you to get on your bike. Root's performances got (marginally) better in the next two fixtures. 39 in the second ODI was acceptable. A duck was saved by his part-time spin in the series decider. So far so unspectacular. On popping his international bubble and returning home Root had 84 points for the week. This would have placed him third bottom for active players this week - just above Marnus Labuschagne and just below Aaron Finch. But his week did not stop there. Yorkshire's T20 Blast campaign has been beleaguered in it's later stages by four senior players coming down with the Corona virus. Root, ever the servant to club and country, answered the call. And what a good call that was. 2-25 and a 39 ball 64 in the Roses match saw him accrue a further 154 points and claim his third Cricketer of the Week accolade of 2020. Root has taken advantage of a surprisingly friendly year for English international cricket. A mainstay of our lists since 2018, this is the first time that Root has topped the weekly table three times in a year. He is also narrowing the gap on first placed Ben Stokes. He has one final T20 Blast game against Derbyshire tomorrow and you would back him to get the 48 points needed to overtake his fellow Englishman.

For Glenn Maxwell to only squeak into the weekly top five seems unfair to the point of egregious. Everyone's favourite big hitter provided the big show he always promises in the final ODI. His match-winning 108 pulled Australia out of the fire and single-handedly claimed the series for the men in yellow. He was by far the star performer of the five players on our list in the series with 336 points. To put this into comparison: that is over double the 141 points Aaron Finch secured. He also scored 85 more runs than his captain with the highest points for strike rate and fielding. All of this is even more shocking when you consider he scored a solitary point in the second ODI. He finished the series with an average points per game score of 112 - again, Finch was second with 47. Maxwell was the leading Cricketer on our list for 2019 and has regained his place in the top ten this week. He started the limited overs series in lowly 18th and has shot up the stsndings. Maxwell will be hoping to do a Jason Holder by following up a decent international tour with an above average T20 franchise competition,. If he does, Maxwell and Punjab could have smiles on their face by the end of the IPL.

I also feel sorry for Babar Azam who has also had one amazing performance in amongst a morass of dross. Azam was a disappointment against England and hasn't provided his usual pyrotechnics for Somerset. On calculating average points per active weeks last week, Azam was one of four players whose average was under 100. These lacklustre performances continued this week with a score of 4 against Northamptonshire and 10 against Gloucestershire. The difference is that, between those two fixtures, sat a 62 ball 114 against Glamorgan. This did a lot of big things for Azam. It moved into the top 3 for the first time - seeing him and Holder swap places. It also pushed his average score per active weeks considerably north of 100 - 116.87 for his 15 active weeks. Another thing it did was stand out against his other mediocre performances. The fact that Azam's best innings of the Summer occurred on a live stream in Cardiff rather than in front of Sky's (or in fact BBC's) cameras is a let down. We also need to ask ourselves when Babar will play again. Azam has one more game inked into his diary - Gloucestershire tomorrow. Somerset do have a narrow chance to qualify from there which will elongate his run. After that? Seemingly nothing. With the IPL starting today, Azam will be looking at the likes of Mohammad Nabi, Finch and Maxwell just behind him. His days in the top five are numbered.

Week


Joe Root - 243
Babar Azam - 218
Colin Ackermann - 202
Lewis Gregory - 198
Glenn Maxwell - 179
Simon Harmer - 171
Aaron Finch- 125
Marnus Labuschagne- 78
David Warner - 32


Kyle Abbott - dnp
Tom Banton - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Martin Guptil - dnp
Peter Handscomb - dnp
Travis Head - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Virat Kohli - dnp
Keshav Maharaj - dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp
Steve Smith - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp


Overall


Ben Stokes - 2204
Joe Root - 2156
Babar Azam - 1753
Lewis Gregory - 1736
Simon Harmer - 1720
Jason Holder- 1691
Aaron Finch - 1453
Mohammad Nabi - 1437
Marnus Labuschagne - 1337
Glenn Maxwell - 1327
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Steve Smith - 1160
Colin Ackermann -1113
David Warner - 1100
Tom Banton - 1048
Travis Head - 901
Virat Kohli - 787
Shubman Gill - 752
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 383

Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

We could wax lyrical for ten thousand words about the skills of Simon Harmer and it would still not do him justice. For a record stretching eighteenth week the South African claims the Cricketer of the Week honours - and does so playing considerably fewer games than most others on the list. With the return of T20 cricket and the fact that I held back this post until the end of the Test match, we have seen much more cricket played over the course of the last week. Simon Harmer is just one of three players to have played just one four day game in that time. The other two were Tom Banton and Lewis Gregory who scored 304 and 123 fewer points than he did. We will hear more from them later. Yet again Harmer delivered a 360 degree bowling and fielding performance with a full allocation of sixty points for economy and a bonus of  fifty points from catches in the field. Harmer has really put himself back in the mix in this truncated Summer. His 327 points sees him jump from 16th place to 8th - a nosebleed inducing ascent. This all does come with a slight caveat. Despite his individual success, weather has conspired against Essex this week meaning their game against Hampshire was a draw. This not only stopped Harmer from achieving even more but potentially sees them having to fight to reach the final of the Bob Willis Trophy. Harmer may just have one more four day match left this year! On top of this, Essex are now heading into the T20 Blast. The upside of this is a barrage of more frequent games but the downside is that Harmer does less well in the shorter format. This may seem anomalous when you consider that his previous high score before last week's 14 wicket haul came in that memorable T20 finals weekend - however this is very much the outlier. In the group stages both Essex and Harmer looked distinctly average and the South African carried this (lack of form) into the Msanzi Super League. If he looks over his shoulder he sees the likes of Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Aaron Finch just starting their Summers. Could we potentially see Harmer outside the top ten? It will make 2020 an even weirder year than it already is. 

Harmer is not the only player that has soared up the Overall List this week. Mohammad Nabi has moved up seven places thanks to four games for St Lucia whilst Jason Holder moves into third place overall for the same amount of game for Barbados. Whilst Hilder has grabbed the headlines slightly more with some big hitting innings, it is Nabi who leads him out in terms of points scored this week. The reason for this is largely consistency in bowling. Holder only got 30 points for economy across all four games. This pales in comparison to Nabi who got 60 across just three games. Such is Nabi's consistency that over the last three games he has got figures of 4.75 and then 4.25 twice. Another area where Nabi has contributed in the field where he has had a catch in each of his four matches. With the bat in hand, however, Holder is in control. Whilst he only has 11 more runs than his Afghan compatriot, his strike rates are through the roof - most notably in his 27 off 12 balls against Nabi's St Lucia. There are still plenty more games in this competition and it will be very interesting to see how these two all rounders measure up when the tournament is done and dusted. 

What of Tom Banton and Lewis Gregory who we mentioned earlier? They were the pair who, like Simon Harmer, only played a solitary Bob Willis Trophy match before being called up on ODI duty. The fates of the two cidermen have been pretty divergent in that time. Returning from injury to face Warwickshire, Gregory performed tidily. Match figures of 5-80 with a pretty economy has seen him move up to seventh place - his highest position since week 2 where everything is a bit fuzzy anyway. Seventh place, ahead of the likes of Steve Smith and Virat Kohli, is very flattering for Gregory. In a normal year it would seem very unlikely that he would hold such an exalted position - however if he played as he did last week he wouldn't be far off. On the other side of the coin, his teammate Banton had another torrid week with the bat. Last week he got 18 and 2 against Northamptonshire and got the lowest points of any active player on the list. This week he got 13 against Warwickshire and ended with the lowest points of any active player on the list. Since lockdown eased Banton has played nine innings in all formats of the game - he has scored over 50 in two of those innings and under 18 in the other seven. This is not good enough from England's wunderkind. Barton's lack of progress is rather splendidly symbolised in the list. He is the only player to have scored points since lockdown and moved backwards in the table - moving from 12th to 13th. Banton needs to redress his issues quicksharp.  

 Week

Simon Harmer - 337

Mohammad Nabi- 300 

Jason Holder - 271

Colin Ackermann- 264

Lewis Gregory - 204

Joe Root-  109

Babar Azam - 94

Tom Banton - 23

Kyle Abbott - dnp 

Aaron Finch - dnp 

Shubman Gill - dnp 

Martin Guptill- dnp 

Peter Handscomb - dnp 

Virat Kohli- dnp 

Marnus Labuschagne- dnp 

Keshav Maharaj- dnp 

Glenn Maxwell - dnp 

Rohit Sharma- dnp 

Steve Smith - dnp 

Ben Stokes - dnp

David Warner - dnp 

Overall 

Ben Stokes - 2204

Joe Root - 1548

Jason Holder- 1340

Babar Azam - 1300

Martin Guptill - 1243

Keshav Maharaj - 1176

Lewis Gregory - 1142

Simon Harmer - 1044

Steve Smith - 1109

Mohammad Nabi - 1001

Marnus Labuschagne - 1000

Aaron Finch - 980

Tom Banton - 910

Travis Head - 901

David Warner - 821

Virat Kohli - 787

Shubman Gill - 752

Colin Ackermann  -685

Glenn Maxwell - 650

Rohit Sharma - 471

Peter Handscomb - 383