2018 All Year Fantasy Competition

[meninblue]

More runs for AB

ABD is in good form post comeback. The only worry you have is he is opting for request rests due to tremendous workload. CSA are considering his requests as well. Otherwise he is going to score loads of runs fro your team.

[GGAS]

Though Khan has done well for me so far in BBL, I was sneakily hoping he'd be cleaning up in the u19 WC...

Hopefully he'll boss the WC qualifications. AFG have Zimbabwe, Scotland, Hong Kong and a qualifier.

[meninblue]

Rashid Khan will also play IPL,BPL, PSL, BIG BASH, CPL,Super Smash and what not.

[Dr Cricket]

TBH for me I need archer not to have ambition to play for England, he need to spend 210 days in england a year, was really hoping he was going to play around the world.
Although if he does only play for Sussex I should be ok still because from my calacultion the players that will do well here are the ones playing domestic cricket in England or India the two nations that play the most number of domestic games.
the only real players that would do better than those are the ones that would have 70-80 + averages in international cricket IE the likes of Kohli, Root, Smith etc.

[The Professor]

Week 3 Update (NB: Calculations were done before the end of the Hobart and Perth game yesterday so those scores not included)

Battling against adversity is one of the signs of a good sportsperson. This is especially needed if you are a cricketer representing a nation outside the top four Test playing nations. Your games are fewer and further between than if you represent one of the big four nations, meaning that when patches of games do come along you have to hit form straight away. Shakib Al Hassan has done just that. At the start of the week he was one of just three players from our list to have not played in 2018. By the end of the week he finds himself seventh in the overall points. From his two games in the Tri-series against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, the Bangladeshi All-rounder bagged 6 wickets and a total of 104 runs. It seems fitting that he ended this stellar week receiving the news that he will enter the IPL auction as one of the marquee signings with a base price of RS 2 Crore. Shakib's form is on the up.

Which brings us to two bowlers whose form has reversed this week. Rashid Khan has been decelerating week by week since the start of January, culminating in him receiving 0 points this week from his one game representing the Adelaide Strikers. This fruitless week sees him drop from seventh to fourteenth position overall. In a reverse situation Ravi Ashwin has bounced back from an uninspiring First Test against South Africa to get five wickets in India's second Test loss. This takes him from thirteenth to sixth position overall and makes him India's top ranking player so far in 2018. From the last week these two players appear to be heading in different directions but, if rumours are to be believed, they both could be heading to Chennai after the IPL auctions.

Finch is another player with a dramatic turn of fortunes from week 2 to week 3. With a yield of just 2 points in the second week, he has joined up with Australia and scored back to back centuries to see him placed second in the rankings for the week and move up to third overall. He has gone from zero to hero and become the fastest player to ten ODI hundreds from Australia doing so in his 84th innings.

With some Aussies in the ascendency, the 2018 form of two of their 2017 powerhouses has been more underwhelming. Steve Smith and David Warner have not taken to January as well as they ended 2017. Smith scored exactly 50 runs in the last 20 days of December but just 169 in the first 20 of January. Warner has a similar split of 211 to 101 and it is perhaps his form that is the most surprising as many would have expected him to have thrived in the white ball format. They find themselves in 15th and 19th respectively and outside the top three Australians.

Another surprise is the continual success of JP Duminy. He finds himself still flying high in the overall list and is the only player to have featured in the top six best performing players every week in January. This week he got his highest yield of points yet with scores of 71 runs and 2 wickets from his 2 games this week - his strike rate of 189.18 and a 36 run over for the Cape Cobras against the Knights being the most eye catching.

Week

Shakib Al Hasan - 379
Aaron Finch - 303
Ravi Ashwin- 301
Joe Root - 257
JP Duminy- 241
Virat Kohli - 218
Nathan Lyon - 170
AB de Villiers - 150
Jofra Archer- 134
Kane Williamson - 134
Mitchell Marsh - 116
Hashim Amla- 113
Dean Elgar- 111
Jos Buttler - 96
Simon Harmer - 88
Steve Smith- 71
Quinton de Kock - 62
David Warner - 57
George Bailey - 56
Jeetan Patel - 50
Rashid Khan - 0
Ravi Jadeja - dnp
Shaun Marsh - dnp
Sunil Narine - dnp

Overall

JP Duminy - 580
Joe Root - 483
Aaron Finch - 479
Kane Williamson - 470
Nathan Lyon - 445
Ravi Ashwin - 435
Shakib Al Hasan - 379
Jos Buttler - 356
Simon Harmer - 351
Jofra Archer - 344
AB De Villiers- 290
Mitchell Marsh - 287
Virat Kohli- 261
Rashid Khan - 225
Steve Smith - 204
Shaun Marsh- 196
Quinton de Kock - 193
Dean Elgar- 156
David Warner - 133
Hashim Amla - 120
George Bailey - 112
Jeetan Patel - 108
Ravi Jadeja - ytp
Sunil Narine- ytp

It has been mixed fortunes for many contenders in a reshuffle in the league. GG-AS has had a middle of the road week with one of his players playing a stormer with another having a stinker. It has been a good week for Dr Cricket and Rich who scored more in a week than their total at the start of the week. Meanwhile myself and Ian are doing fairly well with only one player in their team with Duminy and Shakib counterbalancing the non participation of Narine and Jadeja.

Week

Dr Cricket - 437
Rich - 397
Ian - 379
Adi - 331
Andy 284
GG-AS - 257
FTS - 281
The Professor- 241
Red Devil Jr - 178
DFM - 138
Arthur - 127
Red Devil - 57

Overall

Andy - 1060
Dr Cricket - 823
Rich - 788
GG-AS - 708
FTS - 601
The Professor - 580
Red Devil Jr - 480
DFM - 459
Adi - 381
Ian - 379
Red Devil - 329
Arthur - 316

[Arthur Crabtree]

Excellent update Prof.

Quite a lot for me to do.

[Durhamfootman]

I'm still playing the long game

[meninblue]

Thanks Professor. Nicely done.

Glad my players are taking me up the ranking gradually.

[GGAS]

Root resting for the T20s. Thought Northerners were built of sterner stuff.....

[Arthur Crabtree]

What about Aussies? George Bailey can't hack an English summer. He's costing me points.

[Durhamfootman]

Neither of my boys has played since the 14th Jan. I've just noticed that the Warriors played the other day, but Simon Harmer didn't. Hope he's not injured. They have another match tomorrow, so perhaps he'll be back.

Jeets, on the other hand, is waiting for the resumption of the Ford Trophy at the weekend, so I can't see me making any great strides up the leaderboard this week.

[meninblue]

50 for Virat today. Amla to bat tomorrow. Runs are coming but not as many as I would have liked.

[Durhamfootman]

I've just noticed that the Warriors played the other day, but Simon Harmer didn't. Hope he's not injured. They have another match tomorrow, so perhaps he'll be back.

or perhaps he won't

[meninblue]

50+ scores for Virat and Amla. If they are scoring 50's on such tough wickets i expect them to score loads of runs on other normal wickets which we see more often than not.

[The Professor]

Sunil Narine not going to turn out for WI in qualifiers....not ideal