He has seemingly been off the boil all year; however Babar Adam's PSL outings for Karachi have been enough to see him claim his inaugural Cricketer of the Week award. Despite this accolade, he still languishes a long way off the pace in a distant fourteenth place - which marks his highest position thus far in 2020. Azam has always been at a disadvantage in our overall list as he was inactive for the majority of January and February - featuring only once before the start of the PSL. He is trying to redress this now and averages 125 points a week since the start of the tournament. In terms of his batting performances there has been an element of inconsistency. He began the campaign with a score of 78 against Peshawar and in the reverse fixture this week nearly matched it with a score of 70. In between those two matches he averages just 13. Those are not the innings of a player who is crying out to break into the top ten. When Azam is firing on all cylinders he is a phenomenon - but we really have not seen that so far in 2020. Karachi are scheduled at least four more games in the PSL and, with the competition so close, may very well have a few more. If the version of Babar that thrives against Peshawar comes out to play, the young Pakistan legend in the making could still finish the tournament as a genuine contender.
The Australian trio have continued to use the South African series as way of boosting their overall points and their position in the table. This has been a genuinely entertaining series where both teams have been very much equals - however this has not manifested itself in the points gained over the week. Our only South African national to feature in this series, Keshav Maharaj, broke his four week spell of progression up the overall list, got his lowest score of any active week in 2020 and lost his top spot. In comparison; Steve Smith finished second in terms of points for the week, Aaron Finch moved into the top five at the expense of Joe Root and David Warner moves up a further two places to eleventh spot - just 16 points away from the top ten. These three Australian players are taking the Joe Root route to success this year. In both 2019 and so far in 2020, Joe Root quietly accumulates fairly average scores fairly regularly. He never destroys the opposition but manages to finish in the top five. Neither Smith nor Finch have won Cricketer of the Week so far this year however between them they have finished in the weekly top 5 thrice and four times respectively with Warner joining them on four occasions and winning Cricketer of the Week last week. This week they all finished above the 100 point threshold that marks a good week - a rare occurrence for three players all from the same team. Whether you are looking at our lists or just at the world of cricket in general; Australia are an unavoidably dominant spell once more.
Lewis Gregory is another player who is quietly accruing large amounts of points. This week he has equalled Maharaj's record of four weeks in a row of progression up the overall table. Where Maharaj's run took him from 11th place to first through the acquisition of 564 points, Gregory's four week total of 275 has seem him slowly plod from thirteenth four weeks ago, up one to twelfth the following week, a further one place last week and a jump of two places into the top ten this week. Azam-like, Gregory burst onto the scene at the start of his PSL campaign with an all round effort against Lahore that single handedly won him his first Cricketer of the Week award. Since then he has got a sum total of 0 wickets and two average T20 scores of 25 and 19 . Slow and steady are not adjectives you would usually associate with a player who was forged in the white hot fire of white ball cricket but that is the route that Gregory has taken to get into the top ten. However he is capable of so much more. His innings of 19* against Quetta on Thursday was off just 8 balls. If he had scored just one more run he could have picked up a further 40 points; bringing him up to 3rd for the week and overtaking Shubman Gill in eight position overall. Shoulda, woulda coulda....but such bursts, complimented by slow gradual accumulation could pave the way for Gregory to be something of a surprise contender on the overall list this year.
Week
Babar Azam- 130
Steve Smith - 119
Martin Guptill- 111
Aaron Finch- 109
David Warner - 100
Lewis Gregory - 74
Keshav Maharaj - 62
Jason Holder - 58
Marnus Labuschagne-51
Virat Kohli- 27
Tom Banton- 10
Mohammad Nabi- 10
Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann- dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Travis Head - dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp
Overall
Martin Guptill - 1193
Keshav Maharaj - 1156
Ben Stokes - 1062
Steve Smith - 965
Aaron Finch - 868
Joe Root - 829
Virat Kohli - 787
Shubman Gill - 752
Lewis Gregory - 741
Marnus Labuschagne - 736
David Warner - 720
Travis Head - 681
Glenn Maxwell - 650
Babar Azam - 616
Mohammad Nabi - 600
Tom Banton - 553
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 347
Jason Holder- 225
