Call it a team game, but cricket is sometimes a celebration of individual performances as well. At certain times, cricketers come up with consistent periods at the top of their game that make them rise above their peers, even as they take a shot at being legends of the game. There have been numerous peaks in the past, some of them being Sachin Tendulkar in 1998, Waqar Younis during the 1992-93 season and Sir Vivian Richards in 1976.
Here’s a list of some of the individual cricketing peaks since 2005, in chronological order.
Shane Warne (2005)
Warne, suspended for using a banned diuretic before the 2003 World Cup, returned with a bang the very next year, and continued his form into the 2005 Ashes. He picked as many as 96 wickets in the year 2005, a world record, which was a good 24 wickets more than another of his prolific years, 1993. The period included the 2005 Ashes, where he took 40 wickets in five matches at an average of less than 20.
He ended his Test career with 708 wickets from a total of 124 Test matches.
Muttiah Muralitharan (2006)
In the field of off-spin bowling, Muttiah Muralitharan is non-pareil. The most successful bowler in international cricket had a stupendous 2005-06 season, taking 90 wickets from 11 Test matches. The highlight of that period was 8-70 against England, where he snared the first seven batsman, ending with 11 victims from the match in total. He took as many as 9 five-wicket hauls in that period, bowling at a strike rate of less than 17. From May 2006 onwards, until the end of the year, he had four ten-wicket match hauls out of the five matches he played.
In all, he has 800 Test victims to his credit, taken in a period of 133 matches.
Mohammad Yousuf(2006)
Mohammad Yousuf had been an integral part of Pakistan’s batting line-up from the late 90s onwards, yet he achieved a different level of consistency in the year 2006. He holds the record for scoring the most runs in a calendar year, a small matter of 1788 runs at a Bradmanesque average of 99.33. He garnered nine Test centuries in that period, also a record, and had a high score of 202. He helped Pakistan win the Test series against Englanfd in their own backyard, and scored two centuries against India in their victorious 1-0 campaign.
It is a pity that he had a fall-out with his cricket board, and couldn’t play beyond 2010.
Gautam Gambhir (2008-09)
Gautam Gambhir might be out of favour from the national side, but rewind to the latter part of the previous decade, and Gambhir had become one of the stars of an already glittering Indian batting side. He almost quit the game after being dropped from the 2007 World Cup, saying he “doesn’t feel like playing anymore”. But months later, he took India to the T20 title with crucial knocks at the top. 2008 and 2009 were golden years in Gambhir’s career, both in Tests and ODIs, a period which saw him achieve the ICC Test player of the year award, and briefly, the position of No.1 batsman in Tests.
In the 2008-09 season, he scored five of his nine Test tons, against Australia, England and New Zealand. His average that season lingered around 85. In that period, he scored five ODI centuries as well.
Hashim Amla (2010)
Given Amla’s style of play and consistent run, it is fairly difficult to pin-point on one part of his career which can be deemed as a peak. Yet, the year 2010 was statistically the most successful one for the South African, in all the formats combined.
In 11 Test matches, he raked up 1249 runs at an average of 78, with five centuries and four half centuries. He opened the batting with Graeme Smith, another prolific run scorer, and currently holds the South African batting together. So far, he has accumulated 14,000 international runs over three formats.
Michael Clarke (2012)
There was a time when it looked as if Michael Clarke was scoring centuries for fun. He started 2012 with an unbeaten 329 against India, and ended it with a century against Sri Lanka in the Boxing Day Test. In between those, he notched up three double tons, two of them in succession against South Africa, getting 1595 runs in 11 matches at an astonishing average of over a 100.
He had a vital role to play in the subsequent years for Australia, especially after the retirement of Ricky Ponting.
Mitchell Johnson (2013-14)
Johnson breathed fire with the ball in the 2013-14 Ashes, sending the English batsman packing with 37 wickets in five matches, and followed it up with memorable performances against South Africa, especially in the first Test where he took 12 wickets in just 33 overs of pure pace. His troubling speeds, combined with deadly movement and a searing aggression, helped him capture wickets in both Tests and ODIs in the Baggy Green.In eight Tests in the 2013-14 season, he bagged 59 victims, with an average of 15 and 5 five-wicket hauls included.
Kumar Sangakkara (2014-15)
Sangakkara had been one of Sri Lanka’s most prolific batsmen till his international retirement last year, and one of the mainstays of their batting along with Mahela Jayawardene in the last decade. However, before retiring, he experienced a thumping purple patch, scoring runs at a rate which made people question his decision to quit the game.
In 11 Test matches in 2014, Sangakkara amassed 1438 runs at an average of almost 72, with four tons and eight half-centuries, with 319 as his high score. He played 14 ODIs in 2015, scoring runs aplenty. He scored four back to back centuries in the World Cup, which is a record, and ended with 541 runs, six short of Martin Guptill, the highest run-getter of the tournament. He couldn’t take Sri Lanka to the title, but ended his career with a bang.
Kane Williamson (2015)
New Zealand cricket has, for long, being yearning for consistency in performances. For most part of the previous two decades, they had failed to string together a settled side, with just sporadic individual performances to go by.
Kane Williamson has come in like a breath of fresh air, a batsman in the classic mould, who plays everything with a straight bat. In a lineup of explosive hitters, Williamson is a silent accumulator, having the ability to change gears when the situation arises.
He had a prolific last season, scoring the third most runs in a calendar year (all formats included). That consisted of 1172 runs from eight Test matches, at an average over 90, with five tons and four half centuries. That also includes an unbeaten 242 against Sri Lanka. In ODIs, he scored 1376 runs from 27 matches in the same season, with three 100s and nine 50s.
Virat Kohli (2016)
To put it in simple words, Virat Kohli is in a zone of his own at the moment. He has achieved seemingly unassailable heights in the last few years, doing enough to draw comparisons with the once untouched Sachin Tendulkar.
Kohli almost single-handedly took Royal Challengers Bangalore to their maiden title this season, but just before that, he played some mind-boggling innings in the World T20, which ended in another heartbreak, this time in a semi-final loss to West Indies.
He has already scored 625 runs in 13 T20I matches, at an average of 125 and a strike rate of almost 140. Seven of his 16 T20I half-centuries have been scored this year. He has also scored at an average of 76 in five ODIs, with two centuries already to his name.
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