Official: Top 5 batting performances of BBL|07

Cricket Australia's official player rankings system for the KFC Big Bash League has revealed the top individual performances of the 2017-18 regular season.

The system was devised for Cricket Australia by esteemed Bond University Professor Steven Stern, the man who also lends his name to the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method used for recalculating rain-affected run chase targets, and rates each individual performance as part of the overall player rankings system.

Professor Stern's system calculates the best individual performances in each match, factoring in not just each player's contribution but the circumstances in which they scored runs and took wickets.

In explaining the player rankings at the start of the season, Professor Stern said: "The most straightforward way to explain it is, in each game, suppose we took a player's actual performance out, and substituted in for it what the average of all the other players in the game would have produced in his place ... how much difference would that make?

"That way you're allowing the performances of the players themselves to tell you what the average conditions are, and if you outcompete the other players in terms of what they would have done in your place, then you get a positive component to your aggregate for the season."

Below are the top five batting performances of BBL|07 according to the rankings system.

1) D'Arcy Short - 122no (69)
Hurricanes v Heat @ the Gabba

Rating: 37.3

The highest score in BBL history unsurprisingly rated highly as Short hammered eight fours and eight sixers at the Gabba to be more than four points clear of the second-best batting performance of the season. He also picked up 1-20 in four overs to earn an all-round rating of 43.1, a whopping 9.6 points clear as the best all-round performance of the tournament.

2) Marcus Stoinis - 99 (51)
Stars v Heat @ the Gabba

Rating: 33.1

This was an extraordinary display of hitting that had the whole competition talking, with Stoinis walking to the crease when the score was 4-53 and the Stars next to no hope of chasing down 207. The right-hander hit six fours and six sixes as he fell agonisingly short of a hundred and the Stars finished on 6-191. His figures of 3-38 also earned him 33.5 ratings points as the second-best all-round performance of the season.

3) Shane Watson - 77 (46)
Thunder v Sixers @ Spotless Stadium

Rating: 31.4

In a relatively low-scoring game, Watson made batting look easy as the Thunder secured victory from the final ball of the match. Chasing 150 to win, Watson had scored more than 60 per cent of his team's runs when he was dismissed in the 18th over, hammering six fours and the only six sixes of the innings before he watched his side scrape home in a thriller.

4) Ashton Turner - 70 (32)
Scorchers v Renegades @ the WACA Ground

Rating: 28.3

Coming to the crease with the required run rate more than 10 and 13 overs still to bat, Ashton Turner was at long odds of steering his side to their victory target of 186. But he dominated a crucial 87-run partnership with David Willey in just 7.4 overs and cleared the rope five times in total before he was run out with victory in sight. The Scorchers snuck home to win with a ball to spare, one of four times in BBL|07 that Turner led the way in a successful run chase.

=5) Alex Carey - 100 (56)
Strikers v Hurricanes @ Adelaide Oval

Rating: 27.5

Having made a strong start to the season, Alex Carey lifted his game to a new level to post his first T20 hundred, reaching the milestone with more than two overs left in the innings. He dominated a 171-run opening partnership with Jake Weatherald, which is no easy task given his fellow left-hander's ability to find the boundary, and struck 12 fours and four sixes in all as the Strikers won a high-scoring game by 11 runs.

=5) Nic Maddinson - 62 (31)
Sixers v Stars @ the MCG

Rating: 27.5

In a low-scoring game where only four of 14 batsmen finished with a strike rate of more than 100, Maddinson's innings was a standout. On a difficult batting surface that was criticised by Kevin Pietersen and Glenn Maxwell after the match, Maddinson hit six fours and five sixes as the Sixers cruised to their victory target with 4.5 overs to spare.

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