Nat Sciver-Brunt - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 As is often the way after a high point scoring week, this week sees 60 points let you into the Top 5.

Top 5 for the Week

1. Nat Sciver-Brunt - 180 - Positive signs for fans of England as NSB bags a World Cup Warm-Up Match century...she also bowled for the first time since her ascension to the England captaincy. You'd suspect more points to come.

2. Saim Ayub - 133 - Oh...Pakistan wunkerkind Saim Ayub has finished second has he....he must be performing fantastically in the Asia Cup....let me see.....oh! Yet again saves himself with the ball as he turns into a batting allrounder that's crap at batting.

3. Nicholas Pooran - 120- Seems a little disappointing that he did so well in the Qualifier against St Lucia before bombing in the final against Guyana....still his side won though so can't be too bad.

4. Wanindu Hasaranga - 117 - Another 100+ score since his exile from cricket sees Hasaranga move up a place to 15th in what has been a bit of a damp squib for the portly Lankan bowler.

=5. Pathum Nissanka - 60 - His worst week of the Asia Cup sees him sneak into the Top 5, head bowed and shuffling his feet. Still manages to move up to within 4 points of the Top Ten though.

=5. Jasprit Bumrah - 60 - Another comfortable yet rather quiet Asia Cup week for Jasprit; a man who many call the best bowler in the world...but is our lowest point scorer of the year.

Overall Top 5


1. Sam Curran - 4148 - Rested/dropped from the final England T20I against Ireland and therefore inactive this week. Comfortable 341 point lead on second though.

2. Jos Buttler - 3807 - Might as well have not shown up proceedings in Malahide. Added 10 Fielding points to his total after nicking off for a duck.

3. Liam Dawson - 3613 - Bagged two wickets in the final T20I of the English 'summer' to continue his chokehold on third without ever looking like threatening second. He has now spent 11 consecutive weeks in the Top 3.

4. Nat Sciver-Brunt - 3146 - Is about to enter a pretty intense period of cricket, and does it off the back of moving up spot. She will have to go some to eat into the 467 point gap between her and third....but she's capable.

5. Nicholas Pooran - 3096 - Despite winning the CPL and despite finishing third for the week, Pooran still loses ground this week and drops to fifth.

Top 3 Averages

1.Chamari Athapaththu - 161.67
2. Sam Curran - 159.94
3. Nat Sciver-Brunt - 143 (Up from 141.24)

Madly Saim Ayub's average improves the most this week - up 1.94 to 103.94. Pathum Nissanka comes back down to earth with a 5.67 point reduction to 134.96

Top Players By Format

Red Ball - Liam Dawson - 1652
One Day - Nat Sciver Brunt = 836
Short Form - Sam Curran = 3331

Top Players by Discipline

* = New Name

Runs - Jos Buttler = 1897
Batting Bonus - *Nat Sciver-Brunt = 360
Strike Rate – Jos Buttler = 960

Wickets - Liam Dawson - 1500
Wicket Bonus - Liam Dawson = 170
Economy - Liam Dawson = 650

Fielding - Jos Buttler = 560
Fielding Bonus - Jos Buttler & Phil Salt – 40

Weekly List In Full

Nat Sciver-Brunt 180
Saim Ayub 133
Nicholas Pooran 120
Wanindu Hasaranga 117
Pathum Nissanka 60
Jasprit Bumrah 60
Phil Salt 49
Liam Dawson 40
Suryakumar Yadav 35
Jos Buttler 10

Rishabh Pant dnp
Ravindra Jadeja dnp
Babar Azam dnp
Travis Head dnp
Kane Williamson dnp
Heinrich Klaasen dnp
Yashasvi Jaiwal dnp
Jamie Smith dnp
Chamari Athapaththu dnp
Annabel Sutherland dnp
Sam Curran dnp
Harry Brook dnp
Liam Livingstone dnp
Adam Zampa dnp

Overall list In Full

1 Sam Curran 4148
2 Jos Buttler 3807
3 Liam Dawson 3613
4 Nat Sciver-Brunt 3146
5 Nicholas Pooran 3096
6 Ravindra Jadeja 2804
7 Phil Salt 2798
8 Kane Williamson 2525
9 Harry Brook 2294
10 Annabel Sutherland 2272
11 Pathum Nissanka 2268
12 Heinrich Klaasen 2214
13 Jamie Smith 2112
14 Yashasvi Jaiwal 2042
15 Wanindu Hasaranga 1953
16 Chamari Athapaththu 1940
17 Liam Livingstone 1829
18 Travis Head 1758
19 Suryakumar Yadav 1726
20 Saim Ayub 1663
21 Rishabh Pant 1377
22 Adam Zampa 1326
23 Babar Azam 1308
24 Jasprit Bumrah 1281

Simon Harmer - The Best Crickter of the Week

And he's back. After a nine week barren spell wherein the best cricketer in our overall league has been without the weekly accolade to go with it, Simon Harmer finds himself at the top of both trees. Finally liberated from the inconvenience of the T20 Blast, Harmer has found himself back in the long form of the game and loving life again despite his team's 50% success rate across the two games he completed this week. Reunited with Peter Siddle, the South African spinner looks very comfortable with the ball and extends his lead over Jeetan Patel to 509. Despite his high weekly score, Harmer's tally of eight wickets across two matches seems slightly underwhelming. Harmer's 464 was comprised of 255 points accrued for maidens and economies - a trait that has been seen all over the country on these late Summer pitches. Harmer's 54% of points to maidens and economies is similar to the 56% of Ravi Ashwin's total of 196 and Jofra Archer's 30% of 309. The overcast conditions and moisture has enabled the bowlers to exploit the conditions and strangle their opposition. Despite the temperatures being considerably higher, overhead conditions have also helped Sunil Narine return to his stifling economies not seen since the IPL. In a very real way all of the top three can thank clouds for their performances, perhaps I should name weather as Cricketer of the Week. 

And I think we can finally put to bed the Root v Kohli debate. Kohli has won. The two captains are now separated by 308 points and five places on the overall table. Despite this I was hit this week with a revelation - perhaps we have been looking at the wrong battle. Maybe instead of comparing captain to captain, we should have been comparing captain Kohli to vice-captain Buttler. Throughout the series these two players are the ones that have had more parity between them. This week Kohli doubled Root's weekly score but just 14 points separated Kohli from Buttler. This pattern has continued throughout the Test series. After the third test Kohli scored 260, Buttler 235 and Root? 59. Just like the end of The Usual Suspects, we have been looking at the wrong person the whole time. Kohli is still the king of the crop but Buttler would have pushed him harder than Root ever could have done. 

Nine points doesn't seem anything to write home about but Mitchell Marsh's 9 for Australia A against India A were his first points for 21 weeks - by far the longest period away from the game of any of the players in our list. The nine points are slightly disingenuous. Still returning from injury, the Australia A captain was not permitted to bowl and it would be no surprise that he was out of form after such a long period away from the game - especially on difficult Indian pitches. Needless to say the Western Australian will just be happy to be back on a pitch. Just as we have shifted the focus from Root to Buttler, we may have to do a similar thing with Steve Smith. Due to Smith's withdrawal from the CPL, the competition between him and Warner will have to be resumed another time. The gap between Warner and Marsh is now far more interesting. With Warner still involved in the CPL and Marsh with games left in the A-series the 33 point gap could go either way. 

Week

Simon Harmer - 464
Jofra Archer- 309
Ravi Ashwin - 196
Virat Kohli - 144
Jos Buttler - 130
Dean Elgar- 115 
Kane Williamson- 109
Sunil Narine - 108 
Hashim Amla - 78
Joe Root - 72
Jeetan Patel-68
David Warner - 52
Mitchell Marsh- 9
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
Quinton De Kock- dnp 
AB de Villiers - dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Ravi Jadeja - dnp 
Rashid Khan - dnp 
Aaron Finch- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 5163
Jeetan Patel - 4659
Rashid Khan - 4330
Jofra Archer - 3822
Jos Buttler - 3843
Virat Kohli- 3453
Aaron Finch - 3343
Sunil Narine- 3252
Kane Williamson - 3203
Joe Root - 3145
Shakib Al Hasan - 2582
Ravi Ashwin - 2581
JP Duminy - 2336
Hashim Amla - 2091
Quinton de Kock - 2020
AB De Villiers- 2010
Nathan Lyon - 1833
Dean Elgar- 1809
Shaun Marsh- 1498
Mitchell Marsh - 1434
David Warner - 1401
Steve Smith - 1350
Ravi Jadeja - 1226
George Bailey - 631

Jofra Archer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

The rise and rise of Jofra Archer continued this week with the young West Indian Englishman continuing to develop his acumen as an all rounder. Last week I compared the young man to David Warner and said that what the former brought to the party was the ability to change a game with bat, ball and in the field - this continued this week. Strangely enough, for a player that is widely considered a bowler, he is not at the top of the tree this week for his wickets alone. Despite the fact he got only two wickets in the County Championship Divison 2 game against Derbyshire and a further one in the T20 blast game vs Durham, he also picked up 65 points in maidens and a further 60 for some stranglingly low economies. He has also been the ambassador for a trend that we have started to see in the longer form cricket for posting heady strike rates, the likes of which were never seen in years gone by. Archer's 31 off 19 balls was not the only exhibition of hard hitting this week. Aaron Finch's 32 off 34 balls for Surrey against Lancashire and Jos Buttler's 39 off 32 balls for England against India all stand out in the strike rate column. It is perhaps no surprise that the trio of Archer, Finch and Buttler - whilst all very much impressing in the longer form of the game - are forged as batsmen in the pyrotechnical fires of T20 and are able to bring this across to the Test or County Championship arena. This is all well and good in certain scenarios as long as it is controlled and a mode that you can switch in and out of as you please; if it is a sign of a one track mind you better hope that that track is flat.

There have been times when Joe Root and Virat Kohli's performances have been so similar it has been almost unbelievable. This was put to bed emphatically this week with Virat Kohli pulling away from his counterpart in a dramatic fashion. The 260 points scored by the Indian captain by far outstrips the paltry 59 scored by Root. This has been underlined by Kohli's sudden lurch up the overall table. Kohli has jumped over Sunil Narine into 6th place. In contrast Joe Root has dropped two places down the table to tenth, having been overtaken by Jofra Archer and Kane Williamson. For the pair, who have been so long inseparable in 7th and 8th place it really is a strong upper hand for the touring captain. Root's position in the top ten is unchallenged for now due to the fact there is a gap of 688 between him and the next highest scoring active player in Ravi Ashwin - but for the Yorkshireman to be looking down rather than up the table must be dispiriting for him. 

That old adage of there being nothing either good or bad but thinking making it so could be put to the Test depending on which one of our representatives you ask about the quality of the CPL. Two players who would err on the thinking bad side would be Sunil Narine and Hashim Amla. Sunil Narine, for the third time in 2018, registered a 0-point game in Trinidad and Tobago's outing against Jamaica - getting a duck and figures of 0-42. It again makes you wonder how a player so devastating in the IPL falls short so often in other T20 franchises. Another player trying his hand in the CPL is Hashim Amla who continues a rather unimpressive run of form with a score of just 15 from Barbados' game against Jamaica. On the other side of this coin is two players who have been rather used to turning over coins and seeing huge piles of steaming excrement rather than any kind of luck. Whilst David Warner's form with the bat is still not electric, he scored two consecutive scores over ten for the first time since July this week and got 95 points. Steve Smith was rather more impressive and posted 143 which included 40 points for bowling - an unusually high yield for him. Whilst 95 and 143 are not hugely impressive scores they are enough for both men to leapfrog Ravi Jadeja and make their first upward movement in the game since their banishment from mainstream cricket. Their next target is fellow Australian Mitchell Marsh in 19th place. The bowler, who has not played since March, is 168 points ahead of Warner and 168 for Smith. 

Week

Jofra Archer- 271
Virat Kohli- 260
Simon Harmer - 253
Jos Buttler - 235
Rashid Khan - 200
Kane Williamson- 188
Steve Smith- 143
Jeetan Patel- 107
Ravi Ashwin - 105
David Warner - 97
Aaron Finch-95
Joe Root - 59
Hashim Amla - 15 
Sunil Narine - 0 
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
George Bailey - dnp 
Quinton De Kock- dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy - dnp 
Dean Elgar - dnp 
Ravi Jadeja - dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh- dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 4699
Jeetan Patel - 4233
Rashid Khan - 4019
Jos Buttler - 3713
Aaron Finch - 3343
Virat Kohli- 3309
Jofra Archer - 3181
Sunil Narine- 3131
Kane Williamson - 3094
Joe Root - 3073
Shakib Al Hasan - 2582
Ravi Ashwin - 2385
JP Duminy - 2336
Quinton de Kock - 2020
AB De Villiers- 2010
Hashim Amla - 2008
Nathan Lyon - 1833
Dean Elgar- 1686
Shaun Marsh- 1498
Mitchell Marsh - 1425
David Warner - 1257
Steve Smith - 1227
Ravi Jadeja - 1226
George Bailey - 631

Rashid Khan - The Best Cricketer of the Week

A table topping performance from Rashid Khan was a thing of regularity during May and June where the Afghanistani spinner was there or there abouts very frequently. Since these halcyon days he has gone off the boil somewhat; losing his top spot to Simon Harmer, then letting Jeetan Patel elbow him into third position after seeing himself go seven weeks without registering a triple point weekly score. The top rated T20 bowler in the world has looked under cooked in his spell at Sussex but certainly turned the temperature up in his last two games with two three wicket hauls. One thing that has come as a surprise in this tournament is the fact that, for a spinner who prides himself on excessively low economies, his spell against Glamorgan this week has been only the second time where he has picked up maximum economy in this competition. With Daniel Vettori coming out this week and saying that the English T20 tournament, long considered a second-class competition, is the most competitive and aggressive he knows, one wonders if Rashid has been struggling to cope with the best that England can offer. Putting his struggles aside, this week has seen him narrow the gap between him and second place Patel to a mere 307. With games against Ireland on the horizon for Afghanistan, you would expect Rashid to be back in the mix over the rest of the Summer. 

Rashid and Patel are not the only two in a tussle as the Root v Kohli battle continues with frightening symmetry. Just as we have seen before, Kohli emerges as the personal Victor despite being on the losing end of the second Test - this being said, neither batsman covered themselves with glory with Root's 19 points and Kohli's 40 being the worst and the third worst performances of the week. Despite these paltry scores, the Indian can salvage bragging rights by overtaking Root (again) and reclaiming seventh spot (again). Root can take his own little glory from being the eight person to pass the 3000 point mark. There is still a lot of cricket to play for the two men however, after the last month, I will not be surprised if we see this parity continuing throughout the whole series and those mythical seventh and eighth places on the overall table still being held on to by these two young captains as we move into September. 

It has been another good week for Quinton de Kock in what has been a bad off season for South Africa. The wicket-keeper batsman has had something of a barnstorming few weeks, registering more points in the last month (633) than he did in the previous fifteen weeks (599). QDK also became the 12th South African to reach 4000 ODI runs this week as well as overtaking AB De Villiers to now be the second highest South African on our overall list. De Kock has hit the ground at just the wrong time, especially when taking into consideration Cricket South Africa's decision to withdraw him from his spell at Nottinghamshire. A spell on the sideline will see him dip in form and fall down the overall table, losing the momentum he has built up since his torrid IPL season. The quality of De Kock is in stark contrast to the rest of his team, this is best exemplified in Hashim Amla whose best score in Sri Lanka was 59 but whose average across all formats was just 18.82. Amla scored 24 points across three games this week - 10 for a catch against Sri Lanka and 14 in the CPL for Barbados. Galling for South Africa for whom he ended his most recent international spell with two ducks and his position in the overall table at a lowly 16th. Such is his poor spell of form that many are questioning his place in the team. I described 2018 as a make or break year for the 34 year old at the start of the year - and it seems we may be erring on the side of break. 

I usually compare David Warner to Steve Smith on these posts but this week I will compare the continuing torrid form of the disgraced Australian vice captain to a rising star of the T20 game. This week Jofra Archer played three T20 games and picked up 175 points, mainly for his wicket taking prowess but he also contributed an amazing 22* off 6 balls as well as making two catches. These all rounder performances are the key to rocketing up the table in the way Archer has done over the last few weeks as he sees himself in 9th place - one above Kane Williamson and one below Joe Root. Compare this to Warner whose torrid run of form seemed to be over after he scored 75 for St Lucia against Trinidad and Tobago but then followed it up with a duck against Barbados. This he added to his 11 and 7 in his two games earlier in week to see him score 140 points across 4 games - 4 games where he could really have showed his massive intent in the competition. Instead he has been a let down again - but as I have mentioned before, this rot had already set in before he tried to remove it with sand paper. It may shock you to hear that this meagre score of 140 is his best weekly score of 2018. Not his best score since his ban; the best of the year. Full stop. Exclamation mark! The main difference between Archer and Warner is that The former is keen to showcase his talents any way he can, Warner on the other hand has not contributed with any fielding displays in his five CPL games and is all too often letting his team down with his batting. I suppose that is the difference between a rising star and a damp squib. 

Week

Rashid Khan - 200
Aaron Finch - 191
Jofra Archer - 175
Quinton De Kock- 154
David Warner - 140
Steve Smith- 119
Ravi Ashwin- 97
Kane Williamson- 85
Sunil Narine- 83
Jeetan Patel - 75
Simon Harmer - 72
Jos Buttler - 64
JP Duminy- 55
Virat Kohli - 40
Hashim Amla - 24 
Joe Root - 19
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp 
George Bailey - dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
Dean Elgar - dnp 
Ravi Jadeja- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh - dnp 
Shaun Marsh- dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 4446
Jeetan Patel - 4126
Rashid Khan - 3819
Jos Buttler - 3478
Aaron Finch - 3248
Sunil Narine- 3131
Virat Kohli- 3049
Joe Root - 3014
Jofra Archer - 2910
Kane Williamson -2906
Shakib Al Hasan - 2582
JP Duminy - 2336
Ravi Ashwin - 2280
Quinton de Kock - 2020
AB De Villiers- 2010
Hashim Amla - 1993
Nathan Lyon - 1833
Dean Elgar- 1686
Shaun Marsh- 1498
Mitchell Marsh - 1425
Ravi Jadeja - 1226
David Warner - 1160
Steve Smith - 1084
George Bailey - 631