Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Jan - Heather Knight
Feb - Shadab Khan
March - Usman Khawaja
April - Jos Buttler
May - Matt Potts
June - Jonny Bairstow
July - Dinesh Chandimal
August - Sikandar Raza
September- Mohammad Rizwan

Despite the T20 World Cup being in full swing, I have struggled to select a player who has been consistently excellent due to the fluctuating nature of the tournament.

Instead I have had my head turned by Grant Roelofsen in the CSA T20 Challenge. The Essex player didn't light up the Blast this season but is part of the new South African T20 team alongside Liam Livingstone and Kagiso Rabada and may just be one to watch.

He was the top tournament runscorer until Dewald Brevis's unnatural hit of 162 today but has the superior average of 61.4. Overall he has scored 307 runs in 7 matches. He has passed 50 on 3 occasions and only got less than 20 once.

He's only 26 and could be one to keep on the radar.

The Professor wrote:Despite the T20 World Cup being in full swing, I have struggled to select a player who has been consistently excellent due to the fluctuating nature of the tournament.

Instead I have had my head turned by Grant Roelofsen in the CSA T20 Challenge. The Essex player didn't light up the Blast this season but is part of the new South African T20 team alongside Liam Livingstone and Kagiso Rabada and may just be one to watch.

He was the top tournament runscorer until Dewald Brevis's unnatural hit of 162 today but has the superior average of 61.4. Overall he has scored 307 runs in 7 matches. He has passed 50 on 3 occasions and only got less than 20 once.

He's only 26 and could be one to keep on the radar.

I played against Rolefosen this summer In a t20...scored a 100 in 8 overs smashed the ball to all parts and took a couple of wickets bowling leggies...also a good wk....rumours were that he was gonna be in the SA t20 squad for world cup but didn't happen...he also played for Essex in the 50 over cup this summer scoring a couple of half centuries

I once famously ruled out Liam Norwell for one exceptional performance but have genuinely struggled to think of anyone who has played enough cricket to build up enough of a body of work to back them for this accolade for the whole month.

This leaves me with my nomination of Mohammad Shahzad. The veteran Afghanistan player got his team to the final of the Ahmad Shah Abdali 4-day Tournament and then scored a century in both innings.

Will gladly accept any other shouts though.

Sam Curran for the T20 World Cup?

Ben Stokes for December, for me. For outstanding captaincy

Harry Brook. Most runs ever scored by an England player in an away series v Pakistan.

I'd like to throw Sean Williams' name into the ring.

He has just played 2 games in the Logan Cup - but has dominated in both of them. In the first fixture he got 99 and 4 with 6-47 and 5-93 with the ball. He then got 92 and 2-61 4-44 in the second outing.

Invaluable all round skills.

wonder if he'd play for Durham?

I know I wouldn't

And Cricketer of the Year?

My long list would be:

Harry Brook
Jos Buttler
David Malan
Smriti Mandhana
Suryakumar Yadav

The Professor wrote:And Cricketer of the Year?

Stokes

It's hard to think of anybody else in the world who could have taken charge of a limp, flaccid bunch of England players, shorn of confidence and any last vestiges of belief, on a shambolic streak of wet lettuce cricket that saw them battered into the ground by absolutely everybody, and then turn them into a tight knit bunch bursting with confidence, invention and self belief, who now look perfectly capable of beating anybody, anywhere, in any circumstances and in any conditions

He's been nothing short of extraordinary

and then on top of all that there's the small matter of standing up in a world cup final when it really mattered and dragging his team over the line... again

I genuinely doubt that any cricketer in the world has achieved more in this calendar year than Stokes

Well said DFM. Gets my vote.

Of the 4(!) Domestic T20 franchise competitions that are running at the moment, the ILT20 is the least valid; it does not even count towards players statistics but.....that being said....Alex Hales is absolutely doing bits.

Despite a slight drop off in his last two games - 12 and 4 - his 438 runs at an average of 73 is 151 more than anyone else. He has also scored 3 of the Top 10 highest scores and 2 of the Top 3. This is against some fairly august bowlers. He has been dismissed by Sunil Narine, Chris Jordan and Trent Boult during the competition. Just the 190 T20Is between those 3.

Quite impressive I'd say.

Shubman Gill has had a pretty impressive January, especially in ODIs - 567 runs in 6 matches, average 113, SR 126, with three centuries and a fifty (one double century).

His abymsal T20 form put me off him