Marco Jansen - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

After some fairly low-scoring weeks there has been a lot of movement this week - some of it quite significant.

Weekly Top 5

1. Marco Jansen - 330 - Has really enjoyed this Test series against Australia - underlined by the fact he has scored over half a thousand points in the first two Tests. Up to the dizzying heights of 7th Overall.

2. Harry Brook - 297 - In much the same way as his team finished second best after his monumental score of 202, Brook manages to get pipped to the top spot this week. Gets that very rare 50 point Batting Bonus though.

3. Simon Harmer - 242 - Proved his all round pedigree with 80 runs against one of the toughest bowling attacks in world cricket. He coupled that with two wickets to see him in the Top 5 two weeks on the bounce.

4. Travis Head - 175 - The only slight glimmer of light in what has been a fairly cloudy vista for Australia in South Africa. Bagged a century when it really didn't matter any more. Moves up to 15th.

5. Sam Curran - 107 - Had a particularly hard time of it with the ball this week but still does just about enough to squeak into the Top 5 after his return from injury. Was 4th when he last played...is now 8th and 934 points away from that position.

Overall Top 5

1. Simon Harmer - 4089 - Something Rocky-esque about Harmer's return to the summit. Not selected in 2025 and facing a new wave of young talent, Harmer has stoically worked his way up the rankings to claim top spot whilst defeating one of the best Test teams out there.

2. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi - 3933 - Has heled first place for 41 weeks but has only scored 93 points in the last month and a half. Even more of a concern is that third place is only 80 points below him.

3. Harry Brook - 3853 - Has taken a big big stride up the List this week. Up to third and now just 236 points from first.....not inconceivable....also not unjustified.

4. Jos Buttler - 3770 - Will not play again this year. How long can he hold his Top 5 place?

5. Shubman Gill - 3047 - Used a Ranji Trophy game to keep his eye in.....and most emphatically did not. Scoring 1 run and contributing once in the field for 11 points. 201 points between him and a resurgent Marco Jansen who is one to watch this week.

Highest Weekly Average

1. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi = 157.32
2.Harry Brook - 148.19 (Up from 142.24)
3. Simon Harmer - 141(Up from 137.39)

Marco Jansen moves his average up by 8.45points to 101.64 whilst Gill's poor week sees him down by 5.04 points to 126.96.

Highest Average Points per Game

Red Ball- Marco Jansen = 289.33
One Day - Marco Jansen = 127
Short Form - Nat Sciver-Brunt = 83.95

Highest Points by Format

Red Ball- Simon Harmer = 2970
One Day - Vaibhav Sooryavanshi - 1693
Short Form - Jos Buttler = 3335

Highest Points by Discipline

Runs - Vaibhav Sooryavanshi - 2163
Batting Bonus - Shubman Gill = 420
Strike Rate - Vaibhav Sooryavanshi- 1060

Wickets - Simon Harmer = 1380
Wicket Bonus = Simon Harmer = 230
Economy - Simon Harmer= 950

Fielding - Jos Buttler = 700
Fielding Bonus - Jos Buttler = 70

Weekly List In Full

Marco Jansen 330
Harry Brook 297
Simon Harmer 242
Travis Head 175
Sam Curran 107
Aiden Markram 61
Michael Bracewell 47
Saim Ayub 35
Mehidy Hasan Miraz 32
Liam Dawson 20
Shubman Gill 11

Phil Salt dnp
Rachin Ravindra dnp
Sophie Ecclestone dnp
Nat Sciver-Brunt dnp
Jos Buttler dnp
Paul Walter dnp
Quinton de Kock dnp
Pathum Nissanka dnp
Nicholas Pooran dnp
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi dnp
Ravindra Jadeja dnp

Overall List In Full

Simon Harmer 4089
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 3933
Harry Brook 3853
Jos Buttler 3770
Shubman Gill 3047
Nicholas Pooran 2848
Marco Jansen 2846
Sam Curran 2839
Mehidy Hasan Miraz 2836
Quinton de Kock 2743
Liam Dawson 2441
Saim Ayub 2424
Aiden Markram 2235
Rachin Ravindra 2174
Travis Head 2147
Paul Walter 2119
Ravindra Jadeja 2112
Michael Bracewell 2057
Pathum Nissanka 1823
Nat Sciver-Brunt 1757
Sophie Ecclestone 1558
Phil Salt 1508

Ravindra Jadeja - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

Weekly Top 5

1.Ravindra Jadeja - 215 - Last year's highest Red Ball point scorer has that format to thank for his first Cricketer of the Week of 2026. He added 193 in his Ranji Trophy game against Punjab to his measly 22 points from the final ODI against New Zealand to finish in top spot in a low scoring week.

= 2. Aiden Markram - 198 - Manages to finish second despite playing a solitary T20 game this week. 108 at a good lick was not enough to see his Durban team progress but is enough for silver medal spot this week.

=2. Sam Curran - 198 - A very poor England display - in what is becoming an increasingly crowded field- was counterbalanced by a corker of a final game in the BBL with a half century and two wickets for Sydney. Bet he wished he'd stayed.

4. Nat Sciver-Brunt- 180 - Absolutely loves the WPL. Made a killing in that tournament last year and is doing so again in 2026. Another 80 runs in two games and a couple of wickets to boot for her to finish in the Top 5 for her two opening games.

5. Marco Jansen - 153 - Has failed to impress so far in 2026. 0 in Week 1, 76 in Week 2....and now 153 this week.....that kind pf progression will see him odds on for a score of 300+ next week!

Overall Top 5

1.Vaibhav Sooryavanshi - 687 - Has scored less and less every week but still has a three figure lead on first spot....he also managed to get his first decent tournament runs of the year under his belt with 72 against Bangladesh Under 19s.

2. Ravindra Jadeja - 544 - Moves up a spot to second place courtesy of his first Cricketer of the Week award of 2026. Was in the Top 5 almost all of last year and is setting himself up well for this year.

3. Nat Sciver-Brunt - 519 - Down a place this week despite finishing in the Top 5. Needs her team to start matching her performances for her to access the knockout stages of the WIPL and score more points.

4. Aiden Markram - 462 - Moves up a place courtesy of that final big century for Durban - it is all very very tight in that Top 6 so will be hard pushed to stick around too long.

5. Quinton De Kock - 451 - Only just keeps his place in the Top 5 as he is only a single point ahead of Sam Curran this week. Has at least one more SAT20 game in the bank though so could challenge for higher honours next week.

Highest Weekly Average

1. Nat Sciver-Brunt = 259. 5
2. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi = 229
3. Ravindra Jadeja = 181.33

Good Week for Marco Jansen; up 38.33 points to 76.33. Bad week for Vaibhav Sooryavanshi down 53.5 to 229.


Highest Average Points per Game

Red Ball- n/a
One Day - Vaibhav Sooryavanshi = 98.14
Short Form - Aiden Markram = 115.5

Highest Points by Format

Red Ball- Travis Head - 262
One Day - Vaibhav Sooryavanshi - 687
Short Form - Nat Sciver-Brunt - 519

Highest Points by Discipline

* = New Name

Runs - Vaibhav Sooryavanshi - 377
Batting Bonus - Vaibhav Sooryavanshi- 90
Strike rate - Vaibhav Sooryavanshi - 120

Wickets - Nat Sciver-Brunt = 140
Wicket Bonus - Ravindra Jadeja + Sam Curran - 20
Economy - Ravindra Jadeja = 80

Fielding - Quinton de Kock = 90
Fielding Bonus - Quinton de Kock + Michael Bracewell = 10

Weekly List In Full

Ravindra Jadeja 215
Aiden Markram 198
Sam Curran 198
Nat Sciver-Brunt 180
Marco Jansen 153
Quinton de Kock 125
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 122
Mehidy Hasan Miraz 108
Sophie Ecclestone 92
Liam Dawson 62
Michael Bracewell 58
Shubman Gill 57
Simon Harmer 50
Nicholas Pooran 29
Pathum Nissanka 21
Harry Brook 16
Rachin Ravindra 11
Jos Buttler 10

Paul Walter dnp
Travis Head dnp
Phil Salt dnp
Saim Ayub dnp

Overall List In Full

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 687
Ravindra Jadeja 544
Nat Sciver-Brunt 519
Aiden Markram 462
Quinton de Kock 451
Sam Curran 450
Travis Head 262
Shubman Gill 240
Marco Jansen 229
Jos Buttler 228
Mehidy Hasan Miraz 217
Harry Brook 192
Nicholas Pooran 192
Michael Bracewell 184
Sophie Ecclestone 166
Saim Ayub 160
Rachin Ravindra 127
Simon Harmer 96
Phil Salt 63
Liam Dawson 62
Pathum Nissanka 57

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