Callum Ferguson - The Best Cricketer of the Week

And then there were four. Simon Harmer has done it seven times. Glenn Maxwell has done it five times. This week Callum Ferguson was the 20th player in our 24 player list to win Cricketer of the Week. This then leaves a rather surprising quartet of players who have not topped the weekly list in 2019 - Jos Buttler, Jack Leach and Morne Morkel (a trio we will hear from later) and Kane Williamson - who has never topped the weekly list since we started this in January 2018. Ferguson rightfully deserves his place at the top of the tree this week. To score one century in a week is an achievement; to score two is a rarity. Ferguson's 249 runs in a calendar week has seen him moving up all kinds of tables. He is now the third highest run scorer in this year's Marsh Cup and is now South Australia's all-time leading one day run scorer. His 349 points have also seen him jump a near unprecedented four places on our overall list to finish this week in 16th. With our focus being on the moveable feast at the top of the list, it is easy to miss the fact that places 15 to 20 have just 157 points between them and lot of the movers and shakers in the weekly list come from the lower half of the pack list. Very few places are guaranteed this year.

I have been a little disappointed with Jos Buttler this year. He was a regular feature in the top ten last year and finished 2018 in fifth with 4846 points. This year he has not bothered the top ten and - with six weeks left in the year - is 1815 points off his 2018 total and in a distant twelfth position. His century this week against a New Zealand A side is signs of an upturn in his fortunes but it is indicative that his 190 for the week is the highest score since the ODI series against Pakistan in May - completely bypassing the World Cup and The Ashes. Two memorable stars of the Headingley Test Match have also used the New Zealand A warm up to make a move up the list. Jack Leach, another one of those players to never top the weekly list, has been stuck in the bottom third of the list all season but overhauled Shubman Gill and Morne Morkel this week to move up to 18th. Two weeks ago Ben Stokes was the bottom of the pile in that tightly stacked peloton of players chasing the top 3, however his 173 over the last fortnight has now seen him overtake Joe Root - a man who has long been in the top five but is now sliding down the table at just the wrong time. With a lot of England cricket on the horizon, some of the English boys on our list could force their agenda in the dying embers of the year.

It's been a really disappointing year for Morne Morkel. Last year, Morkel's 59 wickets for Surrey was the second highest in the division and would have earned him 1180 points on wickets alone were he included on our 2018 list. This year he got just 44 - a drop of 300 points. If you compare Morkel's nineteenth position on the overall list to his fellow County Championship stalwarts, in the form of second placed Simon Harmer and third placed Jeetan Patel, you can see just how far off the pace the ex-South African international really is. This week he was overtaken by Jack Leach - which really brings to bear the fact that spinners really are prevailing at the moment, whilst their fats bowling brethren appear to be left in the dust - maybe something that needs to be kept in mind when the 2020 list of players is compiled. This being said, Morkel did move up one place this week - his two wickets for Tshwane against Paarl was enough to see him past the inactive Shubman Gill- however with a handful of games left in 2019 hopes are not high for any further progression.

Week

Callum Ferguson - 349
Jos Buttler - 190
Shai Hope - 178
Jack Leach - 102
Rashid Khan - 98
Ben Stokes - 93
Duanne Olivier - 80
Jeetan Patel - 76
Morne Morkel - 60
Shreyas Iyer - 47
Joe Root - 32
Simon Harmer - 10

Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Jonny Bairstow - dnp
Joe Burns - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Virat Kohli- dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Wayne Parnell - dnp
Abdur Razzak - dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp
Kuldeep Yadav - dnp

Overall

Glenn Maxwell - 5712
Simon Harmer - 5115
Jeetan Patel - 4461
Rashid Khan - 4012
Virat Kohli- 3901
Ben Stokes - 3879
Shakib Al Hasan -3862
Joe Root- 3852
Rohit Sharma - 3747
Jonny Bairstow - 3725
Shreyas Iyer - 3343
Jos Buttler - 3031
Duanne Olivier - 2961
Wayne Parnell - 2743
Shai Hope - 2616
Callum Ferguson - 2567
Kane Williamson - 2524
Jack Leach - 2500
Morne Morkel - 2498
Shubman Gill - 2459
Mohammad Abbas - 2039
Abdur Razzak- 1925
Kuldeep Yadav - 1760
Joe Burns - 1472

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