Ben Stokes - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

Remember when Ben Stokes was having a bad IPL? If I had done this post yesterday as I has planned he still would have been. He would have had 76 points - sandwiching him between Shubman Gill and Steve Smith. A trio of misfiring IPL batsmen. And then he fired. His century for Rajasthan yesterday yielded him 187 points . This eclipses the highest IPL total so far this year - Virat Kohli's 140 against Chennai). T20 is Stokes' least effective format - however when he pulls it out the fire it produces moments that are seared into your memory. It is odd how one performance can turn the course of a tournament. Before yesterday's game Stokes averaged 32 points a game with only Glenn Maxwell (19.21) and Tom Banton (9) below him. After the game his average was 57.83 with only Kohli (59), David Warner (59.64) and Jason Holder (67.5) above him. In the blink of an eye Stokes has eclipsed some of our other IPL contributors in exactly half the time. Maxwell's season has been a poor one. The Punjab allrounder has only one score in the top half of all individual contributions (31 points or more). It has taken Stokes six games to overhaul Maxwell's eleven game total of 212 points. Stokes also has 115 more runs and 40 more points for Strike Rate than the Aussie. It is not just Maxwell who he has overshadowed. He has ten more batting bonus points than Aaron Finch and has more points for fielding than Finch, Kohli and Smith. All of those players have featured in their side from the start. If Stokes had played all games, at his current average, his expected total would be 694 - 38 more than current leader David Warner. What could have been! What has happened, however, is that Stokes has reclaimed his position at the top of the overall list. After a month of playing second fiddle to Joe Root and Babar Azam, Stokes is leading us out as we approach the final two months of the year.

That David Warner is our current IPL points leader might come as a surprise to you. His Hyderabad team have had their worst season in many a year and Warner's performances haven't lit up the tournament. What he has done this year, which has eluded him in year's gone by, is shown consistency. Over the last eleven fixtures, Warner's average points have improved in all but two rounds. Hos tournament high reached 66.43 after his 48 runs against Rajasthan in fixture 7. He now has the second highest average of 59.64 - with only newbie Holder trumping him. There have been 87 individual contributions from our players in this year's IPL - ranging from Stokes 180 yesterday to Glenn Maxwell's 0 against RCB. If we divide these performances into thirds we see a majority of Warner's outings within the top 29. Basically, this means that in seven of his 11 games he has scored 61 points or more. However, if we were to look at scores of more than 100 points (the sign of an outstanding game) there have only been two. This means that 45% of Warner's matches in this year's IPL have been somewhere between 61 and 100 points. Not bad going at all - despite the fact that it's looking like progression to the knockout phase may be unlikely. Warner moves up to eighth - a position he has got no higher than since the third week in January.

In terms of delivering what your national coach asks of you, Travis Head has followed through. At the start of the Sheffield Shield season, Justin Langer sent a message to those on the fringes of national selection; perform well and you'll get in. Usman Khawaja is a man trying to force his way back in whilst Cameron Green is making it hard to be ignored. It's difficult to tell who the incumbent is at the moment but if anyone can claim that title it is Travis Head. It seems an inordinate period of time since Head's second Test century in the Boxing Day Test in 2019 - however there have only been a handful of Tests since then. And yet the South Australian has his critics. Those critics will have to have a rethink after his second week in a row in the top five. His contribution against West Australia was decent - 85 runs plus some points for his part time bowling. That looks paltry compared to his haul of 213 points against Tasmania - all points from the bat. His 171* to save the game showed that he can score big and also grind out a game when needed. He arrived at the crease at 79-2 with his side trailing by more than 200 runs. To succeed under such circumstances is even more impressive. In a week where only four Cricketers moved up in the list, Travis jumped the highest. Overtaking Tom Banton and Keshav Maharaj into 17th. It is worth noting that Banton has played in 18 weeks of this year to reach his current total of 1066. Travis Head's 1249 points have come from just nine weeks. His average points per active week stands at 138.78 - Banton's at 59.22.

Week


Ben Stokes- 256
Travis Head- 213
David Warner - 166
Martin Guptill- 125
Jason Holder- 135
Virat Kohli- 108
Glenn Maxwell - 104
Shubman Gill - 86
Steve Smith- 56
Aaron Finch- 31
Rohit Sharma- 21
Tom Banton - 10


Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann - dnp
Babar Azam- dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Joe Root- dnp




Overall


Ben Stokes - 2551
Babar Azam - 2300
Joe Root - 2286
Lewis Gregory - 2126
Simon Harmer - 1922
Aaron Finch - 1829
Jason Holder- 1826
David Warner - 1750
Steve Smith - 1606
Marnus Labuschagne - 1594
Glenn Maxwell - 1539
Mohammad Nabi - 1458
Colin Ackermann - 1435
Virat Kohli - 1438
Martin Guptill - 1368
Shubman Gill - 1303
Travis Head - 1249
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Tom Banton - 1066
Rohit Sharma - 913
Peter Handscomb - 383

Babar Azam - The Best Cricketer of the Week

It was Ben Stokes that I prophesied would knock Joe Root off top spot and reclaim his title at the top of the list. This did not come to pass despite the flame-haired allrounder's return to cricket. Instead, we have a brand new name at the very top of the list - that of Babar Azam. Nobody has played more cricket than Azam in 2020. His active weeks stand at 18 out of 40. That is one more than Tom Banton and two more than Lewis Gregory and Aaron Finch - however he would have few better weeks than the last seven days. His form in the National T20 cup for Central Punjab has been nothing short of breath-taking. He has made 325 runs in five games. This is even more impressive when you consider he got a duck in one of them. His average points per game stands at 93. To put this into comparison, Steve Smith registered an average of 104.5 in fixture 2 of the IPL. Apart from that no IPL Cricketer on our list has got within touching distance of that average. This week has improved his overall average points per active week. He now stands at 127.78 - 12th placed out of our 22 players. This indicates that Babar has played an awful lot of decent, if not spectacular, cricket in this most unusual of years. His lead on Stokes is a mere five points so his tenure as the leading Cricketer in the World may be brief in the short term. We many need to consider Babar as a contender. If Stokes were to overtake him before the close of the IPL, Babar has a home series against minnows Zimbabwe to boost his score.

Have faith in Virat Kohli and he will deliver. A poor start to the IPL season and a lowly position in the overall list were cast aside this week to see the Indian captain pick up 324 points from four games. This has seen him shoot up the list from 18th to 14th. His improvement over the last fortnight has been very impressive. Averaging 14 points per game after the first three fixtures, he now averages 60.11 - the highest of any of our IPL contributors. He also has picked up 541 points since the start of the competition - the highest of any of our players. Despite his insipid start his total yield of 351 runs is 67 more than David Warner. He also has 20 more Strike Rate points than Shubman Gill who is second in that particular metric. His 140 points from last Saturday's game against Chennai is the highest score for any of our players. His 140 from 90 runs with a strike rate of 173.07 is worth 20 points more than Rohit Sharma's performance against Kolkata in Match 5. Bangalore are guaranteed another five games and seem likely to progress even further. This means that, working on Kohli's current average, he may be expected to accrue another 301 points before we get to the knockouts. That should be enough to see him into the top ten - a place he has not been for the last thirty weeks.

Happily the Sheffield Shield, unlike most other forms of cricket around the world, has not been effected temporally by Covid. This means that some of our least active players will come to the fore once again. Travis Head had only been active for seven weeks before his game for South Australia this week. Bottom placed Peter Handscomb will be back in action in two weeks time. The biggest beneficiary of antipodean cricket this week was an Aussie who had played more than most. Marnus Labuschagne has featured in 11 weeks of cricket this year - one fewer than the average. This week he provided one of his best performances in Queensland's opening fixture. The mercurial batsmen has a propensity to score big runs and delivered this week with 167 against Tasmania. His part time bowling also helped him chip in 50 points to his total to see him finish third in the weekly table. Labuschagne hadn't played any cricket since Australia's tour of England but finished that chapter of the year in ninth place. He has picked up where he left off there by shooting back up to eight place this week. With the international players featuring in the first four rounds of the Shield, scores like this won't hurt the South African born Aussie one bit.

Week


Babar Azam - 329
Virat Kohli- 324
Marnus Labuschagne- 257
Travis Head- 135
Aaron Finch - 133
Steve Smith - 113
Ben Stokes- 91
David Warner - 87
Shubman Gill - 85
Rohit Sharma- 50
Tom Banton - 8
Glenn Maxwell - 0


Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann- dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Martin Guptill - dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Jason Holder- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Joe Root- dnp


Overall


Babar Azam - 2300
Ben Stokes - 2295
Joe Root - 2286
Lewis Gregory - 2126
Simon Harmer - 1922
Aaron Finch - 1798
Jason Holder- 1691
Marnus Labuschagne - 1594
David Warner - 1584
Steve Smith - 1550
Mohammad Nabi - 1458
Colin Ackermann - 1435
Glenn Maxwell - 1435
Virat Kohli - 1330
Martin Guptill - 1243
Shubman Gill - 1217
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Tom Banton - 1048
Travis Head - 1036
Rohit Sharma - 892
Peter Handscomb - 383

David Warner - The Best Cricketer of the Week

 

Maybe the gods of Cricket are smiling on those less fortunate this week. Everyone that featured this week started in the bottom ten in terms of points per active week. This ranged from Glenn Maxwell at 125.18 down to Virat Kohli at 75.55. One player that made positive progress on all fronts is David Warner - this week's Cricketer of the Week. His 212 points this week is another improvement for the Australian who has got better and better as the IPL has continued. He began the tournament poorly with 6 runs against Bangalore. His next two performances saw him get points in the sixties. This week both his performances have been in three figures - 100 against Mumbai and 112 against Punjab. He is now the highest IPL scorer of our eleven players with 397 points. He has also scored the most runs, with the most Strike Rate points and joint most points for fielding. He can also boast the highest average points per game - standing at 66.17. Quite an achievement when you take that score of 6 into consideration. If you remove that game from history, his average would be a monumental 78.2. This stellar week has seen Warner move up five places on the overall list - overtaking Mohammad Nabi, Colin Ackermann and his three international colleagues Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne. There is quite a gulf between him and the next player on the list - Aaron Finch. With Finch's poor form you would not bet against Davey ending the IPL as our highest Australian competitor.

Whereas Warner's ascent has been gradual, Kohli's has shot up. Just two fixtures ago he was averaging 14 points per game - second lowest of all our players. At that time his highest score was 34 points from 14 runs and two catches against Hyderabad. Fast forward a week and Kohli's average is a more respectable 43.4 - the fourth most of our players. 72 runs against Rajasthan and 43 against Delhi has seen the Bangalore captain accrue 175 points this week. This is over four times his total for the previous two weeks combined. Such is the gap at the bottom end of the table, that this score only saw him move up one place on the overall list - over-taking Travis Head into 18th. There could be a little more progression for the combative Indian captain. He is currently doing rather well for Bangalore and has a little queue of people in front of him. He is 42 points behind inactive Kolkata player Tom Banton and 126 behind slightly more active Kolkata player Shubman Gill. Further ahead are Keshav Maharaj and Martin Guptill who have both been inactive for 28 weeks. With this in mind, Kohli could turn a poor 2020 on it's head. The last time Kohli made a move up the list was in the sixth week of the year where he moved from seventh to fourth. Whilst moving from 19th to 18th is a slightly different ball game, in current form the only way is up.

Under different circumstances Babar Azam would be one of the hottest prospects in an IPL franchise. Thanks for that Lord Mountbatten! As the creme de la creme of cricket impress in the UAE, Babar returned from Somerset to captain his Central Punjab team in the National T20 Cup. Whilst he was in quarantine for the obligatory two weeks, his team played five and lost four. No prizes for guessing that the return of a player of his calibre reversed their fortunes. Azam's opening fixture saw him score 86 from 52 balls helpin to put Northern Pakistan to the sword. This earned him 136 points - a very high total for a single T20 game. Of all the contributions we have had from our IPL players this year, the average points per game is 47.21. The highest individual score was Rohit Sharma's 120 against Kolkata. Azam scored 16 more than this. You may point the to the quality of opposition as an excuse for this. You would be wrong. The National T20 Cup boasts a hugely competitive quota of Pakistan internationals. The six Northen Pakistan bowlers he faced off against had a combined 206 T20I caps. These are no rookies. Azam's sparkling performance moves him up above Simon Harmer into fourth. Harmer and he have been jostling for position for some time but it would seem Azam has the beating of him as well as every IPL contributor.

Week


David Warner - 212
Shubman Gill - 186
Virat Kohli - 175
Babar Azam - 136
Rohit Sharma - 101
Steve Smith - 65
Glenn Maxwell - 58
Aaron Finch- 31


Kyle Abbott - dnp
Colin Ackermann- dnp
Tom Banton- dnp
Lewis Gregory - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb- dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Travis Head- dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Mohammad Nabi- dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp


Overall


Joe Root - 2286
Ben Stokes - 2204
Lewis Gregory - 2126
Babar Azam - 1971
Simon Harmer - 1922
Jason Holder- 1691
Aaron Finch - 1665
David Warner - 1497
Mohammad Nabi - 1458
Steve Smith - 1437
Colin Ackermann - 1435
Glenn Maxwell - 1435
Marnus Labuschagne - 1337
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Shubman Gill - 1132
Tom Banton - 1048
Virat Kohli - 1006
Travis Head - 901
Rohit Sharma - 842
Peter Handscomb - 383

Lewis Gregory - The Best Cricketer of the Week

Lewis Gregory was not supposed to be the runaway star of the Bob Willis Trophy final. Simon Harmer has outperformed him in all metrics up until last weekend. Harmer's 38 wickets across the competition was eight more than second placed Craig Overton and 20 more than Gregory's. Harmer's form has seen him win Cricketer of the Week three times in the eight weeks of the tournament. The first was a huge 453 point haul where he took 14 wickets across a single match against Surrey. Over the last eight weeks Harmer has managed to top our list of average points per active week with 254.57 - 54.21 more than second placed Ben Stokes. In comparison, Lewis Gregory has only won Cricketer of the Week once this year. This fell in February where his 185 points playing for the England Lions gave him the ninth lowest winning score since the list started. On his return from England duty, his average points per active game week was 118.31 - 190.89 fewer than Harmer's. On top of all this - Somerset lost.....well drew....but lost. But that is enough of what should have been because it was Gregory who blew Harmer away to get his second Cricketer of the Week accolade. And you can't begrudge him it. Since returning from international duty, Gregory has gone from strength to strength. From being the seventh lowest in terms of points per week he is now eight highest on 132.88. This has seen the Somerset player get within 78 points of second placed Ben Stokes. This being said, Gregory is now going to have a period away from the game whilst Stokes is currently on a plane to join up with Rajasthan. Gregory's place in the top three might be in jeopardy as the IPL continues but the last month has salvaged his year. Rather than him being a player that has played a lot of average cricket over the year, his epitaph might be that he's had a pretty decent domestic year.

By all accounts Colin Ackermann is another player who has made hay in the delayed English summer. His average points over the last 8 weeks stands at 179.38 - enough to see him third on the table. He has also burst upwards after bnot featuring on the list to eventually coming to land in ninth place. The last two T20 Blast performances helped him to creep into that top ten position. Three wickets out of nowhere against Lancashire and Nottinghamshire saw Leicestershire extend their run in the competition. It also saw Ackermann add another 322 points to his total. Across the course of the competition, Ackermann scored 682 points. This is 219 more than Simon Harmer managed. His average points per game across this time was 75.78. This is genuinely rather than impressive. If we were to correlate points to the influence a player has in the game (which isn't an exact science) we could argue that Ackermann has been more impressive than any of our IPL players. As we stand Smith's average per game is 70.67 with with Sharma second on 67.5. This is not a like for like comparison and if Mohammad Nabi or Jason Holder had played more we would have a fairer comparison. It is safe to say that Ackermann is an influential T20 presence. He is another one of these players that it is hard to envisage playing too much more cricket this year. Unless the Netherlands have play over the next three months, Ackermann's total of 1935 might be his final score.

Whoever you look at in our list of IPL players one word springs to mind. Inconsistency. There is only one player who has steadily improved as the competition has gone on and that is David Warner. This can largely be put down to the fact that the Hyderabad opener has an incredibly poor game scoring 6 against Bangalore. Like all good competitors he got off the canvas and got his highest points in the tournament in the very next game. He scored 66 points against Kolkata - 36 of which were from runs. This saw him averaging 36 points per game. After this came 45 runs and 65 points against Delhi - bumping his average points up to 45.67. Yesterday's game against Chennai was something of a backward step in terms of runs (28) and points (48) but his average went up a jot to 46.25. In the grand scheme of things Wanrer's performance are average but consistently improving. In tournaments like the IPL this is the recipe for success. Looking at the names above Warner for total points and average points, they are up and down like yo-yos. Sharma's average points went up by 63 points before dropping 23 and then going back up to 67.5. Smith started very strongly but has had a sharp dip in form. Whereas Warner is quietly improving. If Warner can do anything quietly. He got the third highest score of anyone this week. He is also now 92 points away from re entering the top ten for the first time since lockdown. There is quite a bunch of antipodean IPL players in front of him in the form of Maxwell and Smith but you'd put your money on slow and steady winning the race.

Week


Lewis Gregory - 260
Shubman Gill - 187
David Warner - 179
Colin Ackermann - 153
Simon Harmer - 140
Rohit Sharma - 138
Steve Smith- 103
Aaron Finch- 92
Glenn Maxwell - 24
Mohammad Nabi- 21
Virat Kohli - 7


Kyle Abbott- dnp
Babar Azam - dnp
Tom Banton - dnp
Martin Guptill- dnp
Peter Handscomb - dnp
Travis Head - dnp
Jason Holder - dnp
Marnus Labuschagne- dnp
Keshav Maharaj- dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp


Overall


Joe Root - 2286
Ben Stokes - 2204
Lewis Gregory - 2126
Simon Harmer - 1922
Babar Azam - 1835
Jason Holder- 1691
Aaron Finch - 1634
Mohammad Nabi - 1458
Colin Ackermann - 1435
Glenn Maxwell - 1377
Steve Smith - 1372
Marnus Labuschagne - 1337
David Warner - 1285
Martin Guptill - 1243
Keshav Maharaj - 1176
Tom Banton - 1048
Shubman Gill - 946
Travis Head - 901
Virat Kohli - 831
Rohit Sharma - 741
Peter Handscomb - 383