Aaron Finch - The Best Cricketer of the Week...again

It must be difficult for a natural record breaker such as Aaron Finch to be the second person to do something or the seventh best at something but this week he is the second player after Shakib Al Hasan back in January to score back to Cricketer of the Week accolades largely due to the seventh highest T20 Blast score in the history of the competition. His 131 for Surrey put the icing on the cake of what was already a week where he had ended the tri-series with 47 against Pakistan before joining up with Surrey and getting 58 in his first match against Essex. It really has been an excellent Summer for the Victorian with his average since the first of June at a heady 70.7. His strike rate is almost as impressive as his high number of runs. This week alone his three totals came at strike rates of 174, 175 and 166. He continues to rise up the overall table and has this week leapfrogged the long dormant Kane Williamson to claim sixth place. 

Using these head to head battles has added a further element of competition to this overall contest - however the comparison between Joe Root and Virat Kohli has been as one side as the Titanic in the last week. Root's Summer continues to be drab and dreary - this week his 22 points is his lowest ever score from a week where he has been active. This has been coupled with his omission from the England squad for the final T20 match. Compare this to the Indian captain who used this week as a springboard to turn his fortunes around with 265 points and a second place finish in the weekly table. He has coupled 122 runs with decent strike rates and fielding contributions to put together his most effective week in England in recent memory. From an Indian perspective there will be a huge sense of anticipation that the two players form will remain the same as the Test series approaches. Overall Kohli has overtaken both Williamson and Root and put himself into seventh place and now has a 228 point lead over his English opponent. 

The Summer Test series are very much starting to swing into play - which sees a number of our list returning to action after periods away from point scoring however four of these players have been rather humiliated on their return to the biggest stage. Our three South African candidates Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock and Dean Elgar were rather humbled by Sri Lanka in a match that finished somewhat prematurely this morning. Whilst Amla's weekly score looks the most decent of the trio, a majority of his runs came courtesy of a score of 78 versus a Sri Lanka Board XI and just 15 from the Test. Quinton De Kock's poor run of form that dates back to the IPL continues as his return from nine absent weeks yielded a mere 15 runs across four innings. Not much better was Shakib Al Hasan's showing in Bangladesh's loss to the West Indies. He contributed 12 runs and 2 wickets as his team were rolled over in an innings defeat. Both of these teams and their players will hope for better in their off season tours. 

The tournament is over for two of the three players who have been plying their trade in Canada over the last few weeks. Sunil Narine's Montreal Tigers and Steve Smith's Toronto Nationals have been eliminated with only David Warner's Winnipeg Hawks facing the prospect of a further two games if they can reach the final in today's last qualifier. Inarguably it is the West Indian spinner who has impressed the most of the trio. Despite his team's early exit the player has accrued 357 points over the tournament. Despite David Warner's tepid start, a good week this week has seen both he and Smith get 259 to this point in the competition - however Warner will swell this total due to his continued participation. It will be Warner who feels most pleased out of the two disgraced Australians as he breaks the 1000 point mark for the year and puts himself in contention to overtake Ravi Jadeja when he joins up with the St Lucia Stars. 

Naturally we need to mention Simon Harmer, Jeetan Patel and Rashid Khan at least once in these posts. As predicted Harmer and Patel are struggling in the T20 Blast due to both these players preferring the longer form of the game. What is perhaps more of a surprise is Rashid Khan, something of a T20 Golgotha, taking to the tournament like a duck to hoisin sauce. It is something of a surprise to me that a man who is so destructive in the Big Bash League and the IPL would struggle in the more pedestrian standards of the T20 Blast. This week he got a measly three wickets from his three games. Over and above this his economy rates have been shockingly high for a man who, on the international stage, is usually the king of the Maiden. Sussex will not mind whilst they are near the top of the table but they will want their superstar acquisition to start playing in a more super way if they have a chance of winning the tournament. 

Week

Aaron Finch - 386
Virat Kohli - 265
Ravi Ashwin - 202
David Warner - 187
Jos Buttler - 181
Sunil Narine- 156 
Steve Smith- 153
Hashim Amla - 143
Jofra Archer - 129
Dean Elgar- 110
Simon Harmer - 105
Shakib Al Hassan - 102
Quinton De Kock- 95
Rashid Khan - 71
Jeetan Patel - 47
Joe Root - 22
George Bailey - dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Ravi Jadeja- dnp 
Nathan Lyon - dnp 
Mitchell Marsh- dnp 
Shaun Marsh - dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 4250
Jeetan Patel - 3522
Rashid Khan - 3463
Jos Buttler - 3221
Sunil Narine- 2974
Aaron Finch - 2689
Virat Kohli- 2495
Kane Williamson -2405
Joe Root - 2267
AB De Villiers- 2010
Jofra Archer - 1833
Nathan Lyon - 1833
Ravi Ashwin - 1790
JP Duminy - 1737
Shakib Al Hasan - 1673
Hashim Amla - 1667
Dean Elgar- 1594
Shaun Marsh- 1498
Mitchell Marsh - 1425
Quinton de Kock - 1387
Ravi Jadeja - 1201
David Warner - 1011
Steve Smith - 965
George Bailey - 631

Aaron Finch - The Best Cricketer Of The Week

It is always a pleasure to have a different name as Cricketer of the Week and, whilst it is not a debut appearance, Aaron Finch's top spot is a welcome break from the dominance of Messrs Harmer, Khan and Patel. It will come as a surprise to nobody that Finch's record-breaking week sees him top the charts with an extraordinary 433 points. Over  and above his world beating 172 against Zimbabwe he also got 68* against the sterner opposition of Pakistan so he was always a strong favourite . Once you add this to sparkling strike rates in both these performances it all adds up to a week of dominance from the Aussie batsman. It has been a year of three thirds for the Victorian. He started the year with a series of dominant performances in the Sheffield Shield for Victoria before going AWOL for the first three quarters of the IPL. This could be the beginning of a spell of world class form for the batsman that could see him become a real force in time for the World Cup next year. His performance this week sees him rocket up the overall table and seems him take his place back in the top ten again. He has now overleaped such cricketing luminaries as AB De Villiers, Virat Kohli and Joe Root to seal his position in seventh place. 

Finch is not the only player to rise higher than a Donald Trump blimp in the overall table this week; Jofra Archer has taken his opportunity to build up form with the Sussex 2nd XI with two games in a day against Kent 2nd XI. This would have boosted his match fitness and led to the impressive 3/24 plus 24 runs in his first T20 Blast game against Essex. Overall the young English player has got eight wickets this week. We are used to praising Simon Harmer and Jeetan Patel for their domestic form but as we move into a period of short form domestic cricket, I fully expect Archer to draw the plaudits going forward.  The lower-middle half of the table is so tightly packed that Archer's weekly score of 295 has seen him rise 6 places to 13th. With the three players in front of him (JP Duminy, Nathan Lyon and JP Duminy) all currently inactive, a busy spell in the T20 Blast could see Archer force his way to his highest position all year. 

It has been a disappointing week for our three Cricketing mercenaries who have taken refuge in Canada. Whilst Sunil Narine's 201 seems a decent score, a majority of points are picked up from economy and strike rate points with the West Indian bagging just two wickets and 71 runs from his three games this week. It still seems a mystery to me how a player that performs so explosively in the IPL fails to replicate this form in other T20 competitions around the world. When it comes to the other two more high profile players, it seems to be a battle between the two Australian outcasts who can show the most penance for their actions through performing as badly as humanly possible. This week it was David Warner who seemed to do better than his former captain, claiming 72 points - but with only 12 of these coming from the bat his returns seem far from emphatic. It seems a suitable point to mention that he was having a far from explosive year even before this ban. On the week before Sandpaper gate, the batsman was in a lowly 17th place. Steve Smith followed up his impressive 61 against Vancouver with scores of 10 and 3 to claim just 13 points overall for the week. Warner has just about scored enough to overtake Smith in the overall table but to say that this lacklustre tournament is producing lacklustre performances is something of an understatement. 

I am not usually one to dwell on disappointment, I usually leave that to my girlfriend, however the tussle between the two batting captains, Root and Kohli, has turned into more of a bottle than a battle. After Kohli scored just 9 against Ireland and 20 in the first game against England, Root saw his counterparts ineptitude and matched it with a duck in the same game. Not many would have expected the two players to finish the week lower placed than they started but due to their damp squibs and Finch's pyrotechnics both players dropped a place in the overall league. It goes without saying that Kohli would have been the happier of the two as he draws himself to within 15 points of overtaking Root just before the second T20 this evening. 

Week

Aaron Finch - 433

Jofra Archer- 295

Sunil Narine - 201

Jos Buttler - 119 

Shakib Al Hasan - 132

Jeetan Patel - 100

David Warner - 72

Virat Kohli- 59

Rashid Khan - 50 

Simon Harmer - 23

Steve Smith - 13

Joe Root - 0

Ravi Ashwin - dnp 

Hashim Amla- 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 

Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 4145

Jeetan Patel - 3475
Rashid Khan - 3392

Jos Buttler - 3040

Sunil Narine- 2818

Kane Williamson -2405

Aaron Finch - 2303

Joe Root - 2245

Virat Kohli- 2230

AB De Villiers- 2010

Nathan Lyon - 1833

JP Duminy - 1737

Jofra Archer - 1704

Ravi Ashwin - 1588

Shakib Al Hasan - 1571

Hashim Amla - 1524

Shaun Marsh- 1498

Dean Elgar- 1484

Mitchell Marsh - 1425

Quinton de Kock - 1292

Ravi Jadeja - 1201

David Warner - 824

Steve Smith - 799

George Bailey - 631

Simon Harmer - The Best Cricketer of the Week

The last time someone put up as epic a fight centred on maidens as Simon Harmer has this week, it was during the Battle of Troy. Both of our County Championship brethren picked up a huge amount of points for their maidens scored but, Cricketer of the Week, Simon Harmer's 581 consisted of 32% maidens - a statistic usually only reserved for the House of Commons. It has been an effective week for both Harmer and Patel and these hard Summer months that squeeze in two County games in a week, whilst undoubtably tiring, do boost the total points scored for the bowlers participating in them. Simon Harmer now has a 780 run lead on his historic rival Rashid Khan and it is in those two very different players where you can see the difference in points picked up. Whilst Rashid Khan is eminently more well known and will have played more games over the course of 2018, it is the destructive nature of the bowler in long form cricket that allows one to regularly pick up massive hauls as the South African spinner has done this week. Whilst the title appears to be moving away from Essex, it may be that Harmer's personal lead is now insurmountable.

When I refer to Rashid Khan as Harmer's historical rival, it is because it is no longer he that most closely pushes the South African for Pole position but Jeetan Patel whose 496 points this week gives him a narrow advantage over the Afghanistani spinner. Two impressive performances, including a match winning effort in the Day/Night match against Durham, has seen the New Zealand bowler only spend a week in third spot, having overtaken Sunil Narine last week, before taking silver position this week. If you got points for captaincy he would have further pulled away from third position, thanks to a gutsy declaration that arguably won Warwickshire the game. With twenty wickets taken last year in the T20 Blast, his point scoring may still continue.

It was not only Patel who was shaking things up at the top of the table this week. The Jos Buttler Sumer of Batting Pyrotechnics rumbled on for another week and his score of 311 would have been enough for him to have ended top of the table on your average week, instead he will have to be content with pushing a dormant Sunil Narine down to fifth place and claiming fourth place as his own. Since the start of May the Englishman has scored 916 runs and picked up 1605 points, moving him from 12th to his current fourth spot. This has undoubtably been a very good summer for England's recalled and rejuvenated hero.

I enjoy pitting players against each other on the eve of big tournaments and watching them battle it out. Last time we did this was when we watched the threeway dog fight between De Villiers, Kohli and Williamson throughout the IPL - a battle emphatically won by the Hyderabad batsman. Kohli can join another battle as we approach the series between England and India. The Indian captain and his English counterpart sit in 8th and 7th place respectively and both are coming out of a poor patch of form. Kohli's injury comeback against Ireland this week saw him score exactly 0 points whilst Root will be disappointed with his Summer where he has yet to do anything Earth-shattering but has been consistent. The pair are separated by a mere 74 points so it is anyone's for the taking. Will the home captain prevail or will Kohli break his English voodoo and push himself up the table?

After thirteen weeks of ducks, Steve Smith returned to cricket last night in front of a handful of people in King City, Canada. His yield of 93 points was enough to see movement at the bottom of the table for the first time in months. The ex-Australian captain is now 47 points above fellow disgraced Aussie, David Warner - who plays tonight for Winnipeg. There are now 402 points between these two Aussies and next placed Ravi Jadeja. It remains to be seen if the parochial Canadian bowling might still salvage the year for the two antipodean cast offs - but my word it is strange to see the mighty so far fallen.

Week

Simon Harmer - 581
Jeetan Patel- 496
Jos Buttler - 311
Aaron Finch - 196
Steve Smith- 93
Joe Root - 56
Nathan Lyon - 11
Virat Kohli - 0
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Hashim Amla - dnp
Jofra Archer - dnp
Ravi Ashwin- dnp
George Bailey - dnp
Quinton De Kock- dnp
AB De Villiers- dnp
JP Duminy - dnp
Dean Elgar - dnp
Ravi Jadeja - dnp
Rashid Khan - dnp
Nathan Lyon - dnp
Mitchell Marsh - dnp
Sunil Narine- dnp
David Warner - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp

Overall

Simon Harmer - 4122
Jeetan Patel - 3375
Rashid Khan - 3342
Jos Buttler - 2921
Sunil Narine- 2617
Kane Williamson -2405
Joe Root - 2245
Virat Kohli- 2171
AB De Villiers- 2010
Aaron Finch - 1870
Nathan Lyon - 1833
JP Duminy - 1737
Ravi Ashwin - 1588
Hashim Amla - 1524
Shaun Marsh- 1498
Dean Elgar- 1484
Shakib Al Hasan - 1439
Mitchell Marsh - 1425
Jofra Archer - 1409
Quinton de Kock - 1292
Ravi Jadeja - 1201
Steve Smith - 799
David Warner - 752
George Bailey - 631

Shaun Marsh - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Lionel Messi and Argentina are very much in the thoughts of those of us whose sporting proclivities also lean towards Football. For those who don't know - an eminently talented player weighted down by a country's gaze could not lift an unbalanced team away from humiliation. I do not know how keen Cricketer of the Week Shaun Marsh and his team mate Aaron Finch are on soccer but they might feel a certain affinity with the diminutive Argentinian captain. Whilst the eldest Marsh brother claims the title of Cricketer of the Week, a mere five points (or half a catch) separates him from the newly invigorated Australian opener Finch. Despite their impressive individual scores they are on the verge of being whitewashed by England - and have been on the receiving end of some of the most damaging scenes with a bat since Bruce Wayne fell down that well. If there were any bowlers on this list this year (something I doubt will be an occurrence next year as well) I feel their points total would be something of a different tale. As old fashioned batsmen, Marsh and Finch, who offer very little even in the field, have been largely protected from the decimation offered by Bairstow and Roy. Marsh's performances over the last fortnight has seen him improve his position on our overall table. He now raises himself to the dizzying heights of 16th and is a mere 4 points off Dean Elgar. With the final ODI today, a few runs would see him placed eminently midtable - especially if he improves his strike rate which has been laconic at best. 

Nathan Lyon returned to the fray this week after a lengthily absence of ten weeks. Whilst his 33 points do not represent a particularly good week, he will be happy to be featuring in a cricket game - especially in the one day format. Whilst his week's points are nothing to be proud about, the Australian spinner was so prolific in the early months of the year that, despite his ten week absence, he is still in our top ten overall. He finds himself just below AB De Villiers, who had a whole IPL season, and JP Duminy, who similar to him had a stonking start to the year but has tailed off. With the success rate of English spinners, we may well see the Goat return in this last ODI to pick up some more points. 

There was only one player who was active this week that was not involved in the Anglo-Australian tussle. Having learnt he would be eligible for England for next year's Ashes, Jofra Archer responded with 182 points - his second highest weekly score of 2018. Whilst he is usually seen as a wicket taker, the Sussex man did a good job of strangling the opposition this week and picked up 35 points from maidens against Durham. He joins Shaun Marsh in slowly creeping up the table putting real daylight between himself and Quinton de Kock, who is now 117 points behind him. With the T20 Blast imminent we could see the English bowler really blast up the table. 

Canada have not been on the cricketing scene for many a year. Rewind a decade and they were one of the more competent Associate nations but poor decisions and mismanagement have seen the likes of Ireland, Afghanistan, Netherlands and Scotland overshadow them. No wonder Steve Smith and David Warner felt an affinity towards the newly formed Global T20 Canada tournament having been overshadowed this year by scandal. The two prolific batsman begin their campaigns this week with Smith's Toronto Nationals kicking the tournament off on Thursday and Warner's Winnipeg Hawks making their bow the following day. Could we see them register enough points to make them credible in our overall table? They are desperately off the pace with a gulf of 449 points between Warner and nearest rival Ravi Jadeja. Only time will tell if their form and the expected amateur nature of some of the Canadian bowlers might throw a few surprises at us. 

Week

Shaun Marsh - 195
Aaron Finch - 190
Jofra Archer - 182
Jos Buttler - 165 
Joe Root - 51
Nathan Lyon - 33

Hashim Amla- dnp 
Ravi Ashwin- dnp 
George Bailey - dnp 
Quinton De Kock- dnp 
AB De Villiers- dnp 
JP Duminy- dnp 
Dean Elgar - dnp 
Simon Harmer - dnp 
Rashid Khan - dnp 
Virat Kohli- dnp 
Mitchell Marsh- dnp 
Sunil Narine- dnp 
Jeetan Patel - dnp 
Steve Smith - dnp 
David Warner - dnp 
Kane Williamson - dnp 

Overall

Simon Harmer - 3541
Rashid Khan - 3342
Jeetan Patel - 2879
Sunil Narine- 2617
Jos Buttler - 2610
Kane Williamson -2405
Joe Root - 2189
Virat Kohli- 2171
AB De Villiers- 2010
Nathan Lyon - 1822
JP Duminy - 1737
Aaron Finch - 1674
Ravi Ashwin - 1588
Hashim Amla - 1524
Dean Elgar- 1484
Shaun Marsh- 1480
Shakib Al Hasan - 1439
Mitchell Marsh - 1425
Jofra Archer - 1409
Quinton de Kock - 1292
Ravi Jadeja - 1201
David Warner - 752
Steve Smith - 706
George Bailey - 631