2019 All Year Fantasy Competition

[The Professor]

First half is......second half is how it imploded

[The Professor]

The fact that, after forty five weeks, a player can come from the bottom three of the table and produce a simply astonishing performance shows that you are never quite dead in this game. Abdur Razzak has been rooted near the foot of the table for many months now. He has been at something of a disadvantage all year. He was the second to last player to register a point due to the fact that he didn't play until Week 9 and he has also been the most inactive player of 2019 with 32 inactive weeks. With this working against him, it is almost an achievement that he is not at the very foot of the table however his average points per week played is a fairly healthy 132.69 - a score that would often get you in the top five of The Weekly List. This week, however, was an exceptional one for the bowler with almost Harmer-like figures for the ex-Bangladesh international. He registered figures of 7-69 in the first innings and 5-71 as Khulna had the beating of Rangpur in the Bangladesh National Cricket League. This puts the 37 year old veteran at the top of the wicket taking tally with 25 wickets in five games. Since the start of this competition, he has picked up 897 points - not bad going considering that up until 5 weeks ago he had just 898 overall. As well as scoring his second Cricketer of the Week accolade, he also marked his 600th wicket in First Class cricket - the first Bangladeshi to achieve the feat. For the longest period of time it seemed like the bottom three of Kuldeep Yadav, Razzak and Joe Burns would remain at the foot of the table for the end of the year, however Razzak is now just 244 from a stuttering Mohammad Abbas. It might be the case that a resurgent Bangladesh player may do what Ravi Jadeja did last year and form a very late surge up The List and finish in mid table.

Rohit Sharma and Jonny Bairstow are in eighth and ninth place respectively on the overall List, however they have come from different directions. An astonishing IPL, a decent World Cup and a woeful Ashes saw Bairstow fall from a year high of third position to descend as the year went on. Sharma's year has gone in the opposite direction. A disappointing IPL saw him start the World Cup in 12th position. He then was the fourth highest player on our List for points gained during the World Cup and ended the tournament in eighth. Since then some phenomenal Test performances have seen him comfortably remain in the Top Ten. So these two talented batsmen are sandwiched together and appear locked in a bit of a dogfight as to who can move up the table and who may fall away. Last week Bairstow got a very impressive 193 whilst Rohit Sharma had a week off. This week Rohit finishes third with 154 whilst Bairstow is in 7th - however there is just 22 points between them. In fact positions four to ten are ridiculously close - with just 185 points between Virat Kohli and Ben Stokes. As we approach the closing weeks of the year that top ten position is still remarkably fluid.

And then we turn - yet again - to Kuldeep Yadav. Every time we talk about Kuldeep it is in negative terms. Throughout 2019 he has been phased out of the Test team, has seen Navdeep Saini put his ODI position in question and saw him finish the IPL on the bench for Kolkata. This week saw him return to his domestic team Uttar Pradesh for a fresh start. A chance to show what he can do at the start of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy....and he got just 26 points as Vidarbha needed only 7.5 runs to win the game. It really is looking bleak for the spinner. On the other side of the coin, it was another top five Week for Shubman Gill as he got 72 runs across his two games for Punjab. This has seen him jump two more places in the overall table and end the week in 16th place overall. The last two weeks has seen Shubman pick up 357 points - another sign that when the young man plays regularly he plays well. With a number of T20 games on the horizon it might be a good chance for the Indian batsman to challenge those above him - on the other side of the coin it might just be more of the same for Kuldeep.

Week

Abdur Razzak - 366
Shai Hope - 171
Rohit Sharma - 154
Shubman Gill - 153
Joe Burns- 126
Shreyas Iyer - 116
Jonny Bairstow - 103
Rashid Khan - 72
Callum Ferguson - 62
Kuldeep Yadav - 26
Simon Harmer - 25

Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Jos Buttler - dnp
Virat Kohli - dnp
Jack Leach - dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Morne Morkel - dnp
Duanne Olivier - dnp
Wayne Parnell - dnp
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Joe Root - dnp
Ben Stokes - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp

Overall

Glenn Maxwell - 5712
Simon Harmer - 4999
Jeetan Patel - 4385
Virat Kohli- 3891
Shakib Al Hasan -3862
Rashid Khan - 3853
Joe Root- 3769
Rohit Sharma - 3747
Jonny Bairstow - 3725
Ben Stokes - 3706
Shreyas Iyer - 3116
Duanne Olivier - 2852
Jos Buttler - 2793
Wayne Parnell - 2743
Kane Williamson - 2524
Shubman Gill - 2459
Morne Morkel - 2438
Jack Leach - 2378
Shai Hope - 2299
Callum Ferguson - 2076
Mohammad Abbas - 1969
Abdur Razzak- 1725
Kuldeep Yadav - 1720
Joe Burns - 1451

Headlines

A massive week for RDJ sees him off bottom spot.
DC edges over Andy.

Week

RDJ - 366
MIB - 257
The Professor- 242
Andy - 171
DC - 153
GG - 72
Alviro - 62
Ian - 26
DFM - 25
Arthur - 0
RD - 0
Sussex - 0

Overall

RD - 8150
MIB - 7467
DFM - 6968
Arthur - 6562
Sussex - 6412
GG-AS - 6261
DC - 6165
Andy - 6133
Ian - 6055
Alviro- 4756
RDJ - 4647
The Professor- 4575

[Red Devil]

Maxwell going on sick leave is going to cost me this one ... I'll get overtaken in the next few weeks I'd imagine

[Durhamfootman]

stuttering Mo is an understatement

cheers Prof.

still might be time for Harmer to catch Slapsie, but it'll be tight

[Durhamfootman]

Adi is pulling well clear of me, and I can't see that doing anything but get worse between now and the end of the year

[The Professor]

Shai Hope's third ODI century of the year takes him above Jack Leach into 18th.

[The Professor]

Shai Hope's third ODI century of the year takes him above Jack Leach into 18th.

Leach will now need to take a few wickets for England to hold him off

[The Professor]

Had you asked me a month ago I would have said the selection of veteran Bangladesh bowler Abdur Razzak was a mistake. Midway through October, Razzak was rooted at the foot of the table and 230 points behind second bottom Joe Burns. Fast forward to this week and Razzak has got Cricketer of the Week three weeks out of the last five and has swelled his total by 1027 points through 31 wickets in the Bangladesh Cricket League. He is now 21st and 453 points above Burns. This week he got 6 wickets for Khulna Division - a mere drop in the ocean to his twelve wickets the previous week but he should probably count himself lucky to become the second player to score back to back positions at the top of the weekly list. His score of 200 is the lowest top-scoring weekly points total since Shreyas Iyer's 142 ten weeks ago, however in a comparatively low scoring week he has the best of the rest of the field. His next target on the overall List is Mohammad Abbas who is just 114 points ahead of him and with the form that the veteran is in you would not put it past him nor begrudge him of it. In fact you would,not begrudge him a return to the national team, something the man himself suggested he was still hopeful for this week.

Witnessing the reshuffle of the top ten over the next few weeks should be lively. Last week I pointed out that there was just 185 points between fourth placed Virat Kohli and tenth placed Ben Stokes. This week there is just 189 points between fourth placed Rashid Khan and tenth placed Jonny Bairstow. Such is the fluidity of the top ten, that two performances from Rashid Khan and Ben Stokes that weren't enough to make the top 5 scores for the week saw everyone between fourth and tenth change spot. A mere two wickets in two matches for Afghanistan saw Rashid Khan overtake the disgraced Shakib Al Hasan - knocking him out of the top five - whilst also displacing a disappointing Virat Kohli, forcing him down to fifth. The figure of Rashid Khan snuggled up against Jeetan Patel and Simon Harmer is very nostalgic for those of us who were following The List last year. Ben Stokes' achievement was more impressive with 80 points from a 20 ball 30 and conceding 33 runs off 8 overs for an England XI in a warm up game against a New Zealand XI. He overtook an inactive Jonny Bairstow and another disappointing Indian batsman in the form of Rohit Sharma.

The performances of Shai Hope can fall into two categories in 2019. Ones where his slow strike rate was punctured by good bowling and those where his slow strike rate was allowed to mature by average bowling and he was able to go on and score big. The common denominator in all of these is......his slow strike rate. In the World Cup, a lot of the blame for this was placed at the feet of Chris Gayle whose pyrotechnics meant that you needed a batsman down the other end who would be able to play safe and keep the wagon rolling. Now we have seen the slightly remodelled West Indies 1.5 that Phil Simmons has put together and we see the same old Hope, we must start to think that this might just be his natural game. This hit and miss attitude has seen Hope underperform in this year's List. His century against Afghanistan this week sees him move into joint 17th place. Normally a player scoring a hundred in an ODI would be jostling for top spot, especially in a low scoring week, however this week Hope was lucky to scrape into the top five as all he registered was the 109 points for his runs plus the thirty bonus for his century. Undeniably the man is a talent. His century this week made him the fifth West Indian to score over a thousand runs in a calendar year, joining the illustrious names of Gayle, Desmond Haynes, Viv Richards and Brian Lara - however his point scoring credentials are negligible.

Week

Abdur Razzak - 200
Shreyas Iyer - 180
Callum Ferguson - 142
Shai Hope - 139
Simon Harmer - 106
Ben Stokes - 80
Mohammad Abbas - 70
Rashid Khan - 61
Joe Root - 51
Jos Buttler - 48
Kuldeep Yadav- 40
Duanne Olivier - 29
Joe Burns - 21
Jack Leach - 20
Rohit Sharma - 18
Virat Kohli - 10
Morne Morkel - 0

Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Jonny Bairstow- dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Wayne Parnell - dnp
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Kane Williamson- dnp

Overall

Glenn Maxwell - 5712
Simon Harmer - 5105
Jeetan Patel - 4385
Rashid Khan - 3914
Virat Kohli- 3901
Shakib Al Hasan -3862
Joe Root- 3820
Ben Stokes - 3786
Rohit Sharma - 3747
Jonny Bairstow - 3725
Shreyas Iyer - 3296
Duanne Olivier - 2852
Jos Buttler - 2841
Wayne Parnell - 2743
Kane Williamson - 2524
Shubman Gill - 2459
Shai Hope - 2438
Morne Morkel - 2438
Jack Leach - 2398
Callum Ferguson - 2218
Mohammad Abbas - 2039
Abdur Razzak- 1925
Kuldeep Yadav - 1760
Joe Burns - 1472

Headlines

Andy overtakes DC thanks to Hope.

All of the stranded bottom three are in the top 4 for the week.

Week

RDJ - 229
The Professor - 201
DFM - 176
Alviro - 142
Andy - 139
Arthur - 99
GG - 81
DC - 80
Ian - 40
MIB - 18
Sussex - 10
RD - 0

Overall

RD - 8150
MIB - 7485
DFM - 7144
Arthur - 6661
Sussex - 6422
GG-AS - 6342
Andy - 6272
DC - 6245
Ian - 6095
Alviro- 4898
RDJ - 4876
The Professor- 4776

[Durhamfootman]

660 points needed for Harmer.... there's still time

and a bit of Mo too

cheers Prof

[The Professor]

Rumour has it that upwardly mobile Rohit Sharma might be rested for the ODIs against the Windies.

[The Professor]

And then there were four. Simon Harmer has done it seven times. Glenn Maxwell has done it five times. This week Callum Ferguson was the 20th player in our 24 player list to win Cricketer of the Week. This then leaves a rather surprising quartet of players who have not topped the weekly list in 2019 - Jos Buttler, Jack Leach and Morne Morkel (a trio we will hear from later) and Kane Williamson - who has never topped the weekly list since we started this in January 2018. Ferguson rightfully deserves his place at the top of the tree this week. To score one century in a week is an achievement; to score two is a rarity. Ferguson's 249 runs in a calendar week has seen him moving up all kinds of tables. He is now the third highest run scorer in this year's Marsh Cup and is now South Australia's all-time leading one day run scorer. His 349 points have also seen him jump a near unprecedented four places on our overall list to finish this week in 16th. With our focus being on the moveable feast at the top of the list, it is easy to miss the fact that places 15 to 20 have just 157 points between them and lot of the movers and shakers in the weekly list come from the lower half of the pack list. Very few places are guaranteed this year.

I have been a little disappointed with Jos Buttler this year. He was a regular feature in the top ten last year and finished 2018 in fifth with 4846 points. This year he has not bothered the top ten and - with six weeks left in the year - is 1815 points off his 2018 total and in a distant twelfth position. His century this week against a New Zealand A side is signs of an upturn in his fortunes but it is indicative that his 190 for the week is the highest score since the ODI series against Pakistan in May - completely bypassing the World Cup and The Ashes. Two memorable stars of the Headingley Test Match have also used the New Zealand A warm up to make a move up the list. Jack Leach, another one of those players to never top the weekly list, has been stuck in the bottom third of the list all season but overhauled Shubman Gill and Morne Morkel this week to move up to 18th. Two weeks ago Ben Stokes was the bottom of the pile in that tightly stacked peloton of players chasing the top 3, however his 173 over the last fortnight has now seen him overtake Joe Root - a man who has long been in the top five but is now sliding down the table at just the wrong time. With a lot of England cricket on the horizon, some of the English boys on our list could force their agenda in the dying embers of the year.

It's been a really disappointing year for Morne Morkel. Last year, Morkel's 59 wickets for Surrey was the second highest in the division and would have earned him 1180 points on wickets alone were he included on our 2018 list. This year he got just 44 - a drop of 300 points. If you compare Morkel's nineteenth position on the overall list to his fellow County Championship stalwarts, in the form of second placed Simon Harmer and third placed Jeetan Patel, you can see just how far off the pace the ex-South African international really is. This week he was overtaken by Jack Leach - which really brings to bear the fact that spinners really are prevailing at the moment, whilst their fats bowling brethren appear to be left in the dust - maybe something that needs to be kept in mind when the 2020 list of players is compiled. This being said, Morkel did move up one place this week - his two wickets for Tshwane against Paarl was enough to see him past the inactive Shubman Gill- however with a handful of games left in 2019 hopes are not high for any further progression.

Week

Callum Ferguson - 349
Jos Buttler - 190
Shai Hope - 178
Jack Leach - 102
Rashid Khan - 98
Ben Stokes - 93
Duanne Olivier - 80
Jeetan Patel - 76
Morne Morkel - 60
Shreyas Iyer - 47
Joe Root - 32
Simon Harmer - 10

Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Jonny Bairstow - dnp
Joe Burns - dnp
Shubman Gill - dnp
Virat Kohli- dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Wayne Parnell - dnp
Abdur Razzak - dnp
Rohit Sharma - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp
Kuldeep Yadav - dnp

Overall

Glenn Maxwell - 5712
Simon Harmer - 5115
Jeetan Patel - 4461
Rashid Khan - 4012
Virat Kohli- 3901
Ben Stokes - 3879
Shakib Al Hasan -3862
Joe Root- 3852
Rohit Sharma - 3747
Jonny Bairstow - 3725
Shreyas Iyer - 3343
Jos Buttler - 3031
Duanne Olivier - 2961
Wayne Parnell - 2743
Shai Hope - 2616
Callum Ferguson - 2567
Kane Williamson - 2524
Jack Leach - 2500
Morne Morkel - 2498
Shubman Gill - 2459
Mohammad Abbas - 2039
Abdur Razzak- 1925
Kuldeep Yadav - 1760
Joe Burns - 1472

Headlines

Alviro tops the charts with a huge score, whilst the only move up the table comes from GG who takes advantage of Sussex's two players currently being in action to nip into sixth.

Week

Alviro - 349
Arthur- 222
GG - 200
Andy - 178
DC - 93
RDJ - 80
Ian - 76
RD - 60
The Professor - 47
DFM - 10
MIB - 0
Sussex - 0

Overall

RD - 8210
MIB - 7485
DFM - 7154
Arthur - 6883
GG-AS - 6542
Sussex - 6422
Andy - 6450
DC - 6338
Ian - 6171
Alviro- 5247
RDJ - 4956
The Professor- 4823

[Durhamfootman]

10 points for Harmer won't cut it

not long left

Cheers Prof

[Arthur Crabtree]

Battle for the wooden spoon is very much on.

[The Professor]

Battle for the wooden spoon is very much on.

I feared I was out if it but Burns with almost a century and India's ODIs against Bangaldesh might save me.

Depends on Abdur Razzak.

[The Professor]

A good year sees a player perform well over a short period of time. Amazing years are where a player performs well all throughout the year. This is the third time Ben Stokes has finished as Cricketer of the Week. The first was in February when he was the stand out performer in a poor series against the West Indies. The second was that wondrous Headingley performance in May. Now, as his home nation is shrouded in ice and darkness, he has bookended his spectacular year with another high quality performance. It does seem rather ironic that on the three occasions that Stokes has finished top of the tree it has been for performing above expectations in a disappointing team performance - and this week was no exception. A humiliating innings defeat to New Zealand where the England bowling line up looked (at best) toothless and (definitely) brainless saw Stokes get 219 points - 63% of which were for his batting performance. He was, by some distance, the highest run scorer in the first innings and stopped the game from being even worse than it could have been. Stokes' highest weekly score since Headingley was enough to see him back into the top five; muscling Virat Kohli - who scored a century himself this week - into sixth. Stokes' team-mate and captain Joe Root rounds off the movement at the top of the table as his disappointing score of 63 was enough to see him overtake Shakib Al Hasan and take seventh spot.

There was also a hell of a lot of movement down at the bottom of the table. Last week places sixteen to twenty read: Callum Ferguson, Kane Williamson, Jack Leach, Morne Morkel and Shubman Gill. Over the course of this week, that has completely turned on it's head. After finishing top of the List last week, Callum Ferguson may regret his week off as he drops from 16th to 20th. The other player descending was Kane Williamson who drops from 17th to an all-time low of 19th - despite the fact that he scored points for the first time in a month. The two players to take advantage of this reshuffle were Morne Morkel and Shubman Gill who executed a switcheroo with their antipodean brethren. Shubman Gill did not set the world alight in two of his three Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy games, however got 78 in the final game of the week against Mumbai to help him grab a total of 161 for the week and move from 20th to 17th. Surprisingly Morne Morkel has also used a T20 tournament to boost his score. More of a doyenne of the red ball, the veteran South Africa got five wickets in two games for Tshwane to register his highest score since September and move from 19th up to sixteenth. As we enter the last month of this year's Cricket List, it is as tight at the bottom as it is at the top. Just 179 points separate Wayne Parnell in sixteenth and Callum Ferguson in twentieth. It is all to play for.......unless you are Mohammad Abbas, Abdur Razzak or Joe Burns.

A glint of hope is opening up for Glenn Maxwell. When he revealed his mental health problems and his intention to step away from the game for an indeterminate period of time, he received an outpouring of support both within and outside the game. At the time he was top of the list and 738 points clear of Simon Harmer. Many expected the chasing pack to catch up with the Australian but, four weeks later, Maxwell is still numero uno and with a cushion of just 597 points. The usually unstoppable Simon Harmer has looked distinctly stoppable in that time and his total of just 141 from his five MSL games leaves a lot to be desired. This was clearly a sentiment also shared by Donovan Miller, who has this week dropped the ex-captain from his team. With the Johannesburg side rooted to the bottom of the table, Simon Harmer is likely to have just three more games in him this year. If Simon Harmer is out of the running we should turn our attention to the rest of the pack. Third place Jeetan Patel will be playing all month for Wellington but he is 1062 points behind Maxwell. It is feasible Patel might overtake Harmer but he will have to go some to take top spot. The next highest placed player is Rashid Khan who is 1578 points off the Australian - an impossibly high amount of points to overturn. It is starting to seem that Maxwell has built up such an impressive lead that, despite two months inactive, he will be crowned the winner of The Cricket List 2019 after all.

Week

Ben Stokes - 219
Shreyas Iyer - 199
Virat Kohli - 196
Jeetan Patel - 189
Shubman Gill - 161
Morne Morkel - 150
Joe Burns - 137
Rashid Khan - 112
Jack Leach - 98
Kane Williamson - 71
Joe Root - 63
Duanne Olivier- 60
Jos Buttler - 53
Shai Hope - 43
Rohit Sharma - 31

Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Jonny Bairstow- dnp
Callum Ferguson - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Glenn Maxwell - dnp
Wayne Parnell - dnp
Abdur Razzak - dnp
Kuldeep Yadav - dnp

Overall

Glenn Maxwell - 5712
Simon Harmer - 5115
Jeetan Patel - 4650
Rashid Khan - 4124
Ben Stokes - 4098
Virat Kohli- 4097
Joe Root- 3915
Shakib Al Hasan -3862
Rohit Sharma - 3796
Jonny Bairstow - 3725
Shreyas Iyer - 3542
Jos Buttler - 3084
Duanne Olivier - 3021
Wayne Parnell - 2743
Shai Hope - 2659
Morne Morkel - 2648
Shubman Gill - 2620
Jack Leach - 2598
Kane Williamson - 2595
Callum Ferguson - 2567
Mohammad Abbas - 2039
Abdur Razzak- 1925
Kuldeep Yadav - 1760
Joe Burns - 1609

Headlines

Big total for DC sees him jump over both Andy and Sussex.

The dogfight to avoid the wooden spoon continues.

Week

DC - 380
The Professor - 336
Sussex - 267
GG - 210
Ian - 189
RD - 150
Arthur - 116
RDJ - 60
Andy - 43
MIB -31
Alviro - 0
DFM - 0

Overall

RD - 8360
MIB - 7516
DFM - 7154
Arthur - 6999
GG-AS - 6752
DC - 6718
Sussex - 6681
Andy - 6493
Ian - 6360
Alviro- 5247
RDJ - 5016
The Professor- 5159