Joe Root - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

To say that things are returning back to normal is something over an overstatement but we are getting there. Last week only ten players did not feature. This is the lowest Week for inactive Cricketers since the week beginning March 9th. It's also quite a unique Week as all players have been competing solely in the T20 format. What's more is that an awful lot of these Cricketers have been awfully active. A lot of our active players have featured in four T20 games this week with Jason Holder featuring in five. The player that featured the least is Colin Ackermann with two completed games (points are only allocated for completed games - much to the chagrin of Tom Banton). That week in March where cricket was still 'normal' saw Joe Root as Cricketer of the Week. Almost symbolically he has claimed the title again this week. Root has 'done a Stuart Broad' and reacted to his lack of inclusion in the England T20 side by looking like one of the premium short form players of our age. Across three games for Yorkshire he has scored 154 runs and got four wickets. Statistics that are verging on all- rounder status. What is more impressive is that he has got his highest ever weekly score of 364 featuring in just 4 games. Of all the players that featured this week he has the highest point per game average of 121.33. In this English international heavy year, Root is pulling away from the pack and is gaining on Stokes. Second place Root now has a 340 point lead on Holder and has narrowed the gap between himself and Ben Stokes to 292. With Stokes out of the game for the foreseeable and Holder with one game left in the CPL, Root is likely to continue his dominance in 2020. This is especially the case if he continues to offer something with both bat and ball.

This balance between bat and ball has also seen Mohammad Nabi debut in the Top 5. When Joe Root last won Cricketer of the Week, Nabi played his final game until the start of the CPL three weeks ago. He went into lockdown in 14th position, started the CPL in 17th position, after the first week was in tenth and is now fifth. He has shown himself to be the best All Rounder in the competition. He is the only player to feature in the top ten highest run scorer and top ten most wickets. He has also had the beating of fellow Cricket List CPL All Rounder Holder. Nabi has only scored two more runs at a lower strike rate but he has out performed Holder in all other categories. Nabi has three more wickets, 50 more economy points, twenty more fielding points and points for a three wicket haul. Since the start of the tournament Nabi has scored 605 points to Holder's 503. What is more Barbados are out and St Lucia are looking likely to progress. This could see Nabi encroach further up the List as the tournament continues. Nabi's consistency has also been impressive. Despite playing four games, his average point score is second highest over the last week - 81.25 a game. If St Lucia progress to the final they have at least three games to play - on paper another 244 points for the Afghan. A. Rey good basis for the All Rounder to build up on in the IPL.

As I have said, we have had a lot more active players this week. This is largely down to the fact that Australia have started playing again. This year's list has a high proportion of Aussies and five of them returned to work for the first time this week. As well as yesterday's opening T20 against England, they played out 3 (completed) Intra-Squad T20 friendlies. The two best players in those games were Marnus Labuschagne and Glenn Maxwell. Scholars of the game will notice that their success in the friendly games didn't transfer into the main game. Marnus Labuschagne had the third highest average points per game total in the three warm up games - 72.67. His 51 ball century opening for the AJ Finch XI against the PJ Cummins XI is responsible for most of this. One of the problems that Finch and Langer seem to be having with Labuschagne is where to play him. He scored his century as an opener - but Finch and Warner's performance yesterday makes it unlikely that combo will be tampered with. His second highest score came at first drop - Smith's position - whilst he failed with a score of 7 when he batted at five. Ironically, this is the position for which he is being groomed. Marcus Stoinis and Alex Carey are going to be looked at closely after yesterday's performance. Labuschagne could either replace Stoinis or push Carey down a spot. Either way Labuschagne, who only just dropped out of the top ten last week, sees himself back up to 7th place. Returning 2019 Cricketer of the Year Glenn Maxwell did not have a dream resumption to his national career. After a period of time off for mental health followed by a shoulder injury, Maxwell got one run yesterday. He di bolster his overall score with a brace of wickets and 20 economy points. This saw him escape with a creditable 61 points. In many ways, he had a similar warm-up series to Labuschagne. A century in the first game followed by an average score (20) and a low score (10). Across the four games he averaged 69.75 points per game and also got the third highest total points for the week. Not bad for a batsman who scored just one run in the main game for the week. This profitable week sees him move from 19th to 15th. This now makes the bottom three, in ascending order, Peter Handscomb, Rohit Sharma and Colin Ackermann.

For reference, the rest of the average points per game rankings runs like this:
Babar Azam 58.75
Simon Harmer 57.67
Aaron Finch 48.25
Jason Holder 46.4
Tom Banton 38
David Warner 33.25
Steve Smith 29.5
Colin Ackermann 20
Lewis Gregory 17

Week

Joe Root- 364
Mohammad Nabi- 325
Glenn Maxwell - 279
Babar Azam - 235
Jason Holder - 232
Marnus Labuschagne- 218
Aaron Finch- 193
Simon Harmer - 173
David Warner - 133
Steve Smith - 118
Tom Banton - 114
Lewis Gregory - 68
Colin Ackermann- 40

Kyle Abbott - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Travis Head- dnp
Virat Kohli- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Rohit Sharma- dnp
Ben Stokes- dnp

Overall

Ben Stokes - 2204
Joe Root - 1912
Jason Holder- 1572
Babar Azam - 1535
Mohammad Nabi - 1326
Martin Guptill - 1243
Marnus Labuschagne - 1218
Simon Harmer - 1217
Lewis Gregory - 1210
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Aaron Finch - 1173
Steve Smith - 1127
Tom Banton - 1024
David Warner - 954
Glenn Maxwell - 928
Travis Head - 901
Virat Kohli - 787
Shubman Gill - 752
Colin Ackermann -725
Rohit Sharma - 471
Peter Handscomb - 383

Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

We could wax lyrical for ten thousand words about the skills of Simon Harmer and it would still not do him justice. For a record stretching eighteenth week the South African claims the Cricketer of the Week honours - and does so playing considerably fewer games than most others on the list. With the return of T20 cricket and the fact that I held back this post until the end of the Test match, we have seen much more cricket played over the course of the last week. Simon Harmer is just one of three players to have played just one four day game in that time. The other two were Tom Banton and Lewis Gregory who scored 304 and 123 fewer points than he did. We will hear more from them later. Yet again Harmer delivered a 360 degree bowling and fielding performance with a full allocation of sixty points for economy and a bonus of  fifty points from catches in the field. Harmer has really put himself back in the mix in this truncated Summer. His 327 points sees him jump from 16th place to 8th - a nosebleed inducing ascent. This all does come with a slight caveat. Despite his individual success, weather has conspired against Essex this week meaning their game against Hampshire was a draw. This not only stopped Harmer from achieving even more but potentially sees them having to fight to reach the final of the Bob Willis Trophy. Harmer may just have one more four day match left this year! On top of this, Essex are now heading into the T20 Blast. The upside of this is a barrage of more frequent games but the downside is that Harmer does less well in the shorter format. This may seem anomalous when you consider that his previous high score before last week's 14 wicket haul came in that memorable T20 finals weekend - however this is very much the outlier. In the group stages both Essex and Harmer looked distinctly average and the South African carried this (lack of form) into the Msanzi Super League. If he looks over his shoulder he sees the likes of Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne and Aaron Finch just starting their Summers. Could we potentially see Harmer outside the top ten? It will make 2020 an even weirder year than it already is. 

Harmer is not the only player that has soared up the Overall List this week. Mohammad Nabi has moved up seven places thanks to four games for St Lucia whilst Jason Holder moves into third place overall for the same amount of game for Barbados. Whilst Hilder has grabbed the headlines slightly more with some big hitting innings, it is Nabi who leads him out in terms of points scored this week. The reason for this is largely consistency in bowling. Holder only got 30 points for economy across all four games. This pales in comparison to Nabi who got 60 across just three games. Such is Nabi's consistency that over the last three games he has got figures of 4.75 and then 4.25 twice. Another area where Nabi has contributed in the field where he has had a catch in each of his four matches. With the bat in hand, however, Holder is in control. Whilst he only has 11 more runs than his Afghan compatriot, his strike rates are through the roof - most notably in his 27 off 12 balls against Nabi's St Lucia. There are still plenty more games in this competition and it will be very interesting to see how these two all rounders measure up when the tournament is done and dusted. 

What of Tom Banton and Lewis Gregory who we mentioned earlier? They were the pair who, like Simon Harmer, only played a solitary Bob Willis Trophy match before being called up on ODI duty. The fates of the two cidermen have been pretty divergent in that time. Returning from injury to face Warwickshire, Gregory performed tidily. Match figures of 5-80 with a pretty economy has seen him move up to seventh place - his highest position since week 2 where everything is a bit fuzzy anyway. Seventh place, ahead of the likes of Steve Smith and Virat Kohli, is very flattering for Gregory. In a normal year it would seem very unlikely that he would hold such an exalted position - however if he played as he did last week he wouldn't be far off. On the other side of the coin, his teammate Banton had another torrid week with the bat. Last week he got 18 and 2 against Northamptonshire and got the lowest points of any active player on the list. This week he got 13 against Warwickshire and ended with the lowest points of any active player on the list. Since lockdown eased Banton has played nine innings in all formats of the game - he has scored over 50 in two of those innings and under 18 in the other seven. This is not good enough from England's wunderkind. Barton's lack of progress is rather splendidly symbolised in the list. He is the only player to have scored points since lockdown and moved backwards in the table - moving from 12th to 13th. Banton needs to redress his issues quicksharp.  

 Week

Simon Harmer - 337

Mohammad Nabi- 300 

Jason Holder - 271

Colin Ackermann- 264

Lewis Gregory - 204

Joe Root-  109

Babar Azam - 94

Tom Banton - 23

Kyle Abbott - dnp 

Aaron Finch - dnp 

Shubman Gill - dnp 

Martin Guptill- dnp 

Peter Handscomb - dnp 

Virat Kohli- dnp 

Marnus Labuschagne- dnp 

Keshav Maharaj- dnp 

Glenn Maxwell - dnp 

Rohit Sharma- dnp 

Steve Smith - dnp 

Ben Stokes - dnp

David Warner - dnp 

Overall 

Ben Stokes - 2204

Joe Root - 1548

Jason Holder- 1340

Babar Azam - 1300

Martin Guptill - 1243

Keshav Maharaj - 1176

Lewis Gregory - 1142

Simon Harmer - 1044

Steve Smith - 1109

Mohammad Nabi - 1001

Marnus Labuschagne - 1000

Aaron Finch - 980

Tom Banton - 910

Travis Head - 901

David Warner - 821

Virat Kohli - 787

Shubman Gill - 752

Colin Ackermann  -685

Glenn Maxwell - 650

Rohit Sharma - 471

Peter Handscomb - 383