2019 All Year Fantasy Competition

[Durhamfootman]

thanks, Prof

soon be my time

[GGAS]

Leach finally gets a game and can't even get a wicket against the students

[Durhamfootman]

Harmer's playing

woo hoo



okay he didn't take any wickets, but it's the thought that counts

[Durhamfootman]

I just need Abbas to stop farting about with Pakistan and get back to the day job

[The Professor]

I just need Abbas to stop farting about with Pakistan and get back to the day job

Didn't even play today

[Durhamfootman]

good.... he might be on his way to Leicester as we speak

Harmer was in the money today

[The Professor]

The allure of the IPL has seen the eyes of the world, drawn to such commercial cathedrals of cricket as Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Jaipur, however the most influential Cricketers of the Week were plying their trade in Dubai, Dhaka and Cambridge. Topping the charts for the third time this year is Glenn Maxwell who has yet again showed himself to be the engine room of Austrian cricket. A total performance from the Victorian has seen him score 348 points for the week and further stretch his lead at the top of the table to 394 points. What is even scarier is that, after scoring 188 runs in a week, he still feels he is not playing at his best. I have said it before but Maxwell really could be the secret weapon for Australia at the World Cup this year. The fact that this is the third time that Maxwell has finished top of our weekly table shows just how dominant he has been so far in 2019. We can also see that he is by far the best Cricketer of 2019. At this point last year there was a mere 67 points between second place Simon Harmer and first place Rashid Khan - the fact that Maxwell has over five times that cushion ahead of Rashid this week shows how comfortable he is at the top of the tree.

IPL cricket is a batsmen's world. That has been underlined by the vitriol faced by Ravi Ashwin this week when he dared to level the playing field against Jos Buttler. I could write a whole essay on that debacle but I shall refrain. Instead let's look at the fact that to succeed in our overall list in T20 tournaments it really is a batsman's game. If we scrape off the top 3 on our weekly list, almost all the rest have been featuring in the world's premier T20 tournament. Those that have been the most successful are those that have been picking up the most strike rate points. In fact there is a very clear corollary between those players with the highest strike rate points and success in the overall rankings. Rohit Sharma was the highest IPL playing Cricketer on our list with 154 and he was also the player who scored the most points for his strike rate (50). In joint second place with 134 points are Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler who also registered high for strike rate with 50 and 30 respectively. The flip side of this are those batsmen who picked up no strike rate points. Shreyas Iyer and Shubman Gill all have batted for at least an innings in the IPL and registered no strike rate points and are seventh and ninth respectively. Both Glenn Maxwell and our IPL boys have proved that unless you go big you might as well go home in 2019.

For Kuldeep Yadav 2019 has been a year of two halves. Towards the end of February, Yadav had topped the bill once for his performances against Australia and was just off the pack for the top 5 after spending almost all of January in the top 5. Since then he has been relatively ineffective for India in the shorter forms of the game and now has turned up to the IPL showing no signs of this reversing. He has played 2 games for Kolkata thus far and has registered a mere 10 points for a catch. In his first game against Hyderabad Karthik only used him for half of his allocated overs whilst in his second game against Punjab he went wicketless with an economy of 8. This has seen him slide to 12th in the overall table. With T20 and ODI not being Kuldeep's strongest suit, I see his slide down the table being rather foreboding seeming as there is now 5 weeks of IPL followed by an ODI World Cup. By the end of this, Kuldeep may very well be forced into doing a Jadeja and mount a summer comeback from the foot of the table to keep his name in the frame.

Week

Glenn Maxwell - 348
Simon Harmer - 202
Abdur Razzak - 170
Rohit Sharma- 154
Jonny Bairstow- 134
Jos Buttler - 134
Ben Stokes - 82
Rashid Khan - 75
Virat Kohli - 66
Morne Morkel- 63
Shreyas Iyer - 54
Jack Leach- 53
Shakib Al Hasan - 20
Shubman Gill - 18
Kane Williamson - 14
Mohammad Abbas - 10
Kuldeep Yadav- 10

Joe Burns - dnp
Callum Ferguson - dnp
Shai Hope - dnp
Duanne Olivier - dnp
Wayne Parnell - dnp
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Joe Root - dnp

Overall

Glenn Maxwell - 1783
Rashid Khan - 1389
Ben Stokes - 1242
Shakib Al Hasan - 1191
Shreyas Iyer - 1178
Virat Kohli- 1142
Rohit Sharma - 1118
Joe Root- 1102
Kane Williamson - 1089
Jonny Bairstow - 970
Jos Buttler - 894
Kuldeep Yadav - 880
Duanne Olivier - 793
Simon Harmer - 702
Joe Burns - 699
Callum Ferguson - 671
Jeetan Patel - 625
Abdur Razzak- 548
Mohammad Abbas - 471
Shai Hope - 465
Shubman Gill - 358
Wayne Parnell - 148
Jack Leach - 118
Morne Morkel - 63

Headlines

MIB moves into second
RD up 2 into 5th
Alviro only player not to register a point

Week

RD - 411
MIB - 288
DFM - 212
RDJ - 170
Arthur - 134
GgAS - 128
DC - 100
Sussex - 80
The Professor - 54
Andy - 20
Ian - 10
Alviro - 0

Overall

Sussex - 2231
MIB - 2088
Arthur - 1996
The Professor- 1875
RD - 1846
Andy - 1628
DC - 1600
GG-AS - 1507
Ian - 1405
RDJ - 1341
DFM - 1173
Alviro- 819

[Durhamfootman]

good work, Prof

nearly my time

[meninblue]

Jonny doing well in whatever chances he has got so far with SRH will probably mean he plays all matches for SRH until England players leave on April 30. Guptill might replace him as opener only in later part of IPL if Jonny's form stays consistent. Rohit Sharma scoring more this year because he is opening now for MI.

[sussexpob]

The competition ended on 31st March, right?

[andy]

its only just re-started...

[The Professor]

The sight of a rejuvenated Jonny Bairstow opening the batting for any team is a sight for sore eyes for England fans in the eve of the World Cup. The players has looked rather beleaguered of late. The Bairstow of last Summer was firing on all cylinders - three centuries in succession and four in the space of three months made him a force to be reckoned with. Then came a barren spell with no centuries and only two half centuries in 12 games for England. He was one of the more unimpressive performers in all three formats of the series against West Indies and question marks were being drawn above his head by amateur selectors. He is now second in the IPL run scoring rankings with 262 in five games and he looks like a player reborn. To put this in comparison, Bairstow's last three T20 games in an England shirt saw him average 39 against the West Indies. His three games this week has seen him average 59.33 - the highlight being his 114 runs off 56 balls with 12 fours and 7 sixes. Such is the poor form of Bairstow in the early part of 2019 that, despite being joint fifth last week and first this week, he still finds himself outside of the top five on the overall table - trailing Ben Stokes by 51 points. It is very difficult to compare international games to the IPL - however if it is form and confidence we are talking about, Bairstow will be joining up with his English compatriots with buckets of it.

India's captain is finding it much harder to captain Bangalore than he does his national team - and that is saying something. Undoubtably Virat Kohli is a once in a generation player - but too often we see these amazing players thrust the captaincy of teams as they are guaranteed a place rather than for their credentials as a captain. There have always been swirling buzzards of discontent circling Virat's captaincy but this week has seen them swoop down to pick at the carcass of Bangalore's IPL season. Virat's inept nature as a captain is usually well hidden by the fact that India's talent on the pitch sees them prevail. In Australia there were some very odd team selections, daft field settings and nonsensical bowling choices but they still walked away with a drawn T20 series and victories in the Tests and ODIs. For Bangalore he is not having such luck. Instead he is having to mask his inadequacy through trying to carry the team on his own. His 231 points this week is his third highest of the year - however he appears to be batting long rather than batting well. Today's game against Delhi is a case in point of this. He picked up 61 points for scoring 41 at a strike rate of 124.24 spanning 17 overs. He only played at 26 out of the 81 balls bowled and absorbed 17 consecutive singles. Decent points scored - but to the detriment of his team. He is still one of the highest performers in the IPL of all our contributors - but at what cost to his reputation?

After a strong showing in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Shreyas Iyer has continued his fine spell of form into the IPL. He is not grabbing the headlines as some of the other players on the list but his 215 runs across six games sees him in third place - above such media darlings as Andre Russell, Rishabh Pant and Jos Buttler. The secret to Iyer's success has been consistency. Half of his six innings have seen him score over 40 runs and his lowest score in the tournament has been 16. He is regularly grinding out scores from first drop that guide his team's through that difficult transition period and usher them towards victory. He is so ridiculously consistent that over his last ten innings he has scored 43 runs three times. It is not just in total runs scored that we see this lack of variability for the Indian. In each of his four innings this week he has strike rates north of 100 but never edging over 150. This ensures he is always scoring at least run a ball but never forgetting the value of his wicket. Iyer is following the JP Duminy model to success - last year it was the South African player who was the quiet man at the top of the table - however he will hope to not fade away like JPD did. Integral to this is earning himself a place in the India squad for the World Cup. That all important fourth batting spot is still up for grabs and many believe that whoever impresses in the IPL can grab it. With Iyer being the top Indian run scorer, it is within his grasp.

Week

Jonny Bairstow- 318
Shreyas Iyer- 291
Virat Kohli - 231
Glenn Maxwell - 170
Duanne Olivier - 140
Jos Buttler - 135
Ben Stokes - 97
Wayne Parnell - 85
Kuldeep Yadav- 80
Rashid Khan - 70
Abdur Razzak- 57
Morne Morkel- 50
Rohit Sharma- 44
Shubman Gill - 37
Mohammad Abbas - dnp
Shakib Al Hasan - dnp
Joe Burns- dnp
Callum Ferguson - dnp
Simon Harmer - dnp
Shai Hope - dnp
Jack Leach- dnp
Joe Root- dnp
Jeetan Patel - dnp
Kane Williamson - dnp

Overall

Glenn Maxwell - 1953
Shreyas Iyer - 1461
Rashid Khan - 1459
Virat Kohli- 1373
Ben Stokes - 1339
Jonny Bairstow - 1288
Shakib Al Hasan - 1191
Rohit Sharma - 1162
Joe Root- 1102
Kane Williamson - 1089
Jos Buttler - 1029
Kuldeep Yadav - 960
Duanne Olivier - 933
Simon Harmer - 702
Joe Burns - 699
Callum Ferguson - 671
Jeetan Patel - 625
Abdur Razzak- 605
Mohammad Abbas - 471
Shai Hope - 465
Shubman Gill - 395
Wayne Parnell - 233
Jack Leach - 118
Morne Morkel - 113

Headlines

Gets very tight at the top.
Some reshuffling all round.

Week

MIB - 362
The Professor- 291
Sussex - 231
RD - 220
RDJ - 197
DC - 134
Arthur - 131
Alviro - 85
Ian - 80
GGAS - 70
Andy - 0
DFM - 0

Overall

Sussex - 2462
MIB - 2450
The Professor- 2166
Arthur - 2131
RD - 2066
DC - 1734
Andy - 1628
GG-AS - 1577
RDJ - 1538
Ian - 1485
DFM - 1173
Alviro- 904

[Durhamfootman]

no Abbas for Leics

[Alviro Patterson]

Jonny doing well in whatever chances he has got so far with SRH will probably mean he plays all matches for SRH until England players leave on April 30. Guptill might replace him as opener only in later part of IPL if Jonny's form stays consistent. Rohit Sharma scoring more this year because he is opening now for MI.

Added bonus is Bairstow (or any England player in the IPL) must play at least one Royal London Cup game before the home ODIs commence.

[meninblue]

no Abbas for Leics

He is named in 23 member probables for WC. Pak would be announcing final squad on April 18.