LONDON: All-rounder Ben Stokes has ended Virat Kohli’s three-year reign as Wisden’s leading cricketer in the world after playing a starring role in England’s World Cup win last year.
The 2020 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, published on Wednesday, crowns the swashbuckling all-rounder as the sport’s pre-eminent player. He is the first England player to receive the honour since Andrew Flintoff in 2005.
The 28-year-old won the man-of-the-match award in the World Cup final against New Zealand at Lord’s and then produced a remarkable match-winning innings of 135 not out in the third Ashes Test against Australia.
“Ben Stokes pulled off the performance of a lifetime — twice in the space of a few weeks,” said Wisden Editor Lawrence Booth. “First, with a mixture of outrageous talent and good fortune, he rescued England’s run-chase in the World Cup final, before helping to hit 15 off the super over.
“Then, in the third Ashes Test at Headingley, he produced one of the great innings, smashing an unbeaten 135 to pinch a one-wicket win. Against red ball or white, he was a force of nature.”
Stokes in January won the International Cricket Council’s player of the year award. — AFP
Cricinfo adds: Australia’s all-rounder Ellyse Perry was named as the leading woman player in the world, an honour she also attained in 2016, and was also named as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year — the Almanack’s oldest and most prestigious honour, which represents a tradition dating back to 1889.
She is the seventh women’s cricketer to pick up the honour, and the first from overseas. West Indies’ Andre Russell was named as the leading T20 player in the world.
“Ellyse Perry dominated the women’s Ashes like no one before her,” Booth said, “inspiring Australia to a crushing victory. She was devastating with the ball, claiming seven for 22 in the ODI at Canterbury, and remorseless with the bat, not least during the one-off Test at Taunton, where she made 116 and 76 not out.”
The Almanack features on its front cover the decisive moment of last summer’s World Cup final, when Jos Buttler removed the bails to run out New Zealand’s Martin Guptill and secure England’s maiden title. And the man who bowled that over, Jofra Archer, is also named as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers after his remarkable maiden season in international cricket.
“Jofra Archer had an unprecedented impact in his first summer as an international cricketer,” Booth said. “He showed astonishing poise to bowl the super over that delivered England the World Cup, then produced some of the quickest and most memorable spells in recent Ashes history, knocking over Steve Smith at Lord’s, and finishing the series with 22 wickets at just 20 apiece.”
Two other Ashes combatants, Australia’s Pat Cummins and Marnus Labuschagne, were named among the Five Cricketers, as was Essex’s South African off-spinner and one-day captain Simon Harmer, who was a pivotal factor in their victories in both the County Championship and the T20 Blast.
“Pat Cummins was a constant menace as Australia retained the Ashes in England for the first time since 2001,” said Booth. “He was fast, hostile, accurate — and rarely without a smile. His haul of 29 wickets was the most in a series by a bowler not taking a five-for. He looked what he was: No 1 in the world.
“Marnus Labuschagne began his Ashes as a curio, becoming Test cricket’s first concussion substitute, and finished it as Australia’s best batsman behind Smith, having ticked off four successive half-centuries. That followed a prolific stint with Glamorgan, where he notched 1,114 Championship runs at 65. Later in the year, he averaged 112 in the Australian summer.”
England’s World Cup win is celebrated by Wisden in a special 80-page section, with New Zealand’s magnanimous response to their defeat in the final being signalled out for special praise.
“Boundary countback is one of those regulations that angers no one until it comes into play, at which point it is plain daft,” Booth writes. “When the ICC scrapped the rule three months later, sensibly replacing it with a further super over, it was regarded in darker corners of the web as proof — proof! — that New Zealand had been robbed.”
Elsewhere in the 2020 edition, Wisden urges the government to ensure England’s matches at future home global events are made freely available to all, and warns English cricket about unconscious racial bias, following some uncomfortable treatment for the team’s black and Asian stars.