The 153rd and latest edition of Wisden has included the names of Brendon McCullum, Steven Smith, Kane Williamson, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow in the Cricketers of the Year category.
The Wisden Cricketers of the Year awards represent a tradition that dates back to 1889, making this the oldest individual award in cricket. The selection of the awardees is by whim of being editor. Excellence in the previous English summer is the major criterion for inclusion, the other being that no one can be chosen more than once.
The notes of the annual, which is published on Thursday, also notes that the era of the Big 3 – India, Australia and England – may be coming to an end. It noted England’s resurgence since the 2015 World Cup as “the most uplifting story in international cricket of the year”.
New Zealand’s Kane Williamson has been named as Wisden’s Leading Cricketer in the World for 2015, having amassed 2,692 international runs across all formats, 323 runs more than second-placed Steve Smith.
Retiring Kiwi captain Brendon McCullum, and English heroes from 2015 Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow were the other cricketers named in this category.
McCullum has scored a 54-ball century, the fastest in Tests, this year. Ben Stokes earned his place in this elite list presumably mainly by the virtue of his 258 off 198 balls against South Africa in the 1st Test in a recent series. Bairstow, yet another promising English cricketer, played a couple of match winning knocks in the Ashes in 2015.
Yet another Kiwi, all-rounder Suzie Bates, was awarded the Leading Woman Cricketer in the World. The notes said, “It needed something special to deny both Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry this award, and Bates’s all-round performances were precisely that.”
Shikhar Dhawan is the only Indian cricketer to have been named as part of the Wisden's Cricketers of the Year in the recent past, in 2014.
