Harry Brook - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

Weekly Top 5

1. Harry Brook - 241 - The man of the moment is the man of the week with yet another ton. Surprisingly this is only his this Cricketer of the Week from his 26 active weeks in 2024. You would imagine we will be seeing more of him going into our 2025 Lists.

2. Moeen Ali - 173 - Last played for Guyana almost 2 months ago and then clocks back in for the same unit in the Global T20 League. 4 games in a week will always give you a bit of a boost. Moeen is the ultimate yo-yo-er and is back up to 11th on the Overall List.

3. Daryl Mitchell - 123 - Making hay in the antipodean sun whilst he has been scrabbling around in the dirt for most of the year. This is his second successive active week in the Top 5.

4. James Vince - 116 - Finishes his jolly up in Abu Dhabi having scored 484 in three weeks. Now onto the BBL; starting next weekend.

5. Shubman Gill - 80 - Hard to read much from this. Retired 50* in a two day Test warm-up game that was reduced to one day and was played the week after the First Test was over. Still enough for him to move up to 15th Overall.

Overall Top 5

1. Chamari Athapaththu - 4681 - I could be wrong (it has been known) but I think that this might be Athapaththu's final total. I cannot see anymore cricket on the horizon for her in 2024. It doesn't feel enough for our first female cricketer to finish first.

2. James Vince - 4454 - Vince will finish second of first this year. 768 points sperate him to third and he has 4 BBL games between now and New Years Eve to overthrow the 227 point gap on first. He averages 80.25 per T20 game.

3. Travis Head - 3686 - Another week's rest (if that's the right word for a father of a month old baby. Back in action next week.

4. Phil Salt - 3569 - Did not end the Abu Dhabi T10 competition with the pyrotechnics we saw throughout the rest of the tournament but keeps his fourth place spot.

5. Sam Curran - 3460 - Inactive again...you feel he may finish 2024 outside the Top 5. Jaiswal is 233 points away from him, Labuschagne 253, Jadeja 348 and Brook 360.

Other Mover

45 points in the 'warm-up' game against an Australian Prime Minister's XI was enough to see him overtake Labuschagne into 8th.

Top Three Averages

1. Chamari Athapaththu - 167.18
2. Jos Buttler - 140.05 (Down from 143.26)
3. Ravindra Jadeja - 129.67 (Down from 132.39)

Seems cruel, if not also very funny, that Kohli not batting or fielding gets him 0 points in a warm up game and sees his average drop by a smidge over 4 points to 93.92. Harry Brook's goes up the most, +4.87 to 119.23.

Highest scorer by Format

Long Form = Simon Harmer = 2235
One Day = Chamari Athapaththu = 946
Short Form = Chamari Athapaththu- 3745

Highest scorer by Discipline

*=New Name

Runs - James Vince - 2604
Batting Bonus - Travis Head = 400
Strike Rate - James Vince = 910

Wickets - Chamari Athapaththu = 1200
Wicket Bonus - Ravindra Jadeja = 250
Economy - Simon Harmer - 680

Fielding – Phil Salt - 550
Fielding Bonus - James Vince - 50

Weekly List in Full

Harry Brook 241
Moeen Ali 173
Daryl Mitchell 123
James Vince 116
Shubman Gill 80
Jos Buttler 79
Ravindra Jadeja 67
Rachin Ravindra 58
Yashasvi Jaiswal 45
Phil Salt 24
Virat Kohli 0

Simon Harmer dnp
Aaron Hardie dnp
Babar Azam dnp
Sam Curran dnp
Glenn Maxwell dnp
Mitchell Marsh dnp
Travis Head dnp
Chamari Athapaththu dnp
Steve Smith dnp
Marnus Labuschagne dnp
Usman Khawaja dnp

Overall List In Full

Chamari Athapaththu 4681
James Vince 4454
Travis Head 3686
Phil Salt 3569
Sam Curran 3460
Babar Azam 3303
Yashasvi Jaiswal 3227
Marnus Labuschagne 3207
Ravindra Jadeja 3112
Harry Brook 3100
Moeen Ali 2893
Rachin Ravindra 2872
Simon Harmer 2808
Jos Buttler 2801
Shubman Gill 2441
Glenn Maxwell 2424
Virat Kohli 2254
Daryl Mitchell 2060
Mitchell Marsh 1837
Aaron Hardie 1774
Steve Smith 1550
Usman Khawaja 980

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

Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

I am always pleasantly surprised at how fair the points system is. The fact we have only had one player on the top of our weekly league twice (Shakib Al Hasan) is testament to how it highlights the truly outstanding performers of the week. We have also seen it throw up some rather unusual players for credit. This week is one of those weeks. Simon Harmer delivered almost the perfect game for the Warriors against the Dolphins in the Sunfoil Series this week. He grabbed points in every category with the exception of bonus points for runs and for strike rate. His 12 wickets in one game has seen him beat Sunil Narine's highest points score for one week and has also seen him go from a relatively creditable 9th position to third place overall - over such high flyers as Rashid Khan and the aforementioned Sunil Narine. 

When it comes to T20 season few players utilise their time better than Narine. The PSL is the first big tournament of 2018 and the spinner has swung into T20 form without pause. Building up on his form for Trinidad and Tobago, he has now joined up with Lahore Qalanders and registered a top ten score in his first two games despite the fact that his team have lost their two opening games. Thus far in the year, Narine has picked up the bulk of his points with the ball but now he is in T20 mode his batting has adjusted accordingly - most notably in his ten ball 28 that earned him 68 points alone. If he matches his bowling form for T&T with that explosive batting he could push himself into the top three overall after passing the 1000 point score this week. 

Even with his good start to the year, Kane Williamson is in a world of bother with the bat. He started the year with two weeks in second position lagging behind, first, Jos Buttler and, then, JP Duminy. Since then his poor form has seen him drop week by week. He has now registered single figure scores in 7 of his last 8 games and has an average for February of 17.7. This has seen him struggle to regain his position in the top ten of our overall league. Currently sitting 12th, he is 60 points off Aaron Finch in tenth. With a series of ODI matches against England on the table he will be hoping to turn his form round or face a further embarrassing slip down the league. 

Before this week Nathan Lyon and Steve Smith did not have a lot to crow about. Lyon had suffered a bit of a pasting playing for the Prime Minister's XI against England whilst Smith was second bottom in the table ahead of only Jeetan Patel. This week they have played a warm up game against South Africa A and - without setting the world alight - they have performed comfortably. Lyon's economy was flawless and, whilst he only got one wicket, he seemed to limit the team well - with the exception of one dubious over. Smith's scores were also not overly gargantuan, scoring 23 and 25, however his strike rate in the second innings was 192.3 and his mystery spin brought the house down around South Africa A in their second innings. Lyon's 173 points sees his slide out of the top ten arrested and he now sits in eight place whilst his skipper leap frogs a number of players to move him well away from the foot of the table and alongside his compatriot David Warner. 

He is tenacious - we will give him that. Facing mounting criticism regarding his captaincy, dropped from the one Day team and usurped at the top of the overall table, JP Duminy had his second best week of 2018 and sits second behind Harmer in this week's top point scorers. His back to back half centuries sees him up one place on our overall league - 41 points behind Kohli. Duminy is now expected to return to domestic cricket where he thrived whereas Kohli seems to have nothing on this week. Dare he dream?

Week

Simon Harmer - 504
JP Duminy - 232
Steve Smith- 188
Jos Buttler - 161
Rashid Khan - 178
Nathan Lyon - 173
Mitchell Marsh - 167
Jofra Archer - 145
Sunil Narine - 134
Joe Root - 111
Ravi Jadeja - 96
Shaun Marsh - 74 
Quinton de Kock- 63
David Warner - 55
Virat Kohli - 47
Kane Williamson - 45
Dean Elgar- 27
Aaron Finch - 18
George Bailey - 10
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Hashim Amla - dnp
Ravi Ashwin - dnp
AB De Villiers- dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 

Overall

Virat Kohli- 1231
JP Duminy - 1190
Simon Harmer - 1169
Rashid Khan - 1166
Sunil Narine- 1036
Mitchell Marsh - 939
Jos Buttler - 851
Nathan Lyon - 834
Ravi Ashwin - 810
Aaron Finch - 735
Joe Root - 733
Kane Williamson - 675
Shakib Al Hasan - 608
Jofra Archer - 550
Hashim Amla - 467
Steve Smith - 463
David Warner - 435
AB De Villiers- 423
Quinton de Kock - 408
Shaun Marsh- 408
Ravi Jadeja - 397
George Bailey - 395
Dean Elgar- 394
Jeetan Patel - 108