Cummins, Australia’s fast bowling spearhead and captain across formats, guided his team to victories over India in both the ICC World Test Championship at The Oval in June and the 50-over World Cup in Ahmedabad in November. He oversaw his side’s successful defense of the Ashes in a 2-2 draw in England last summer.
He is the first Australian since Michael Clarke in 2012 to be named Wisden’s Leading Cricketer and succeeds England counterpart Ben Stokes, who received the honor three times in four years, in 2020, 2021 and 2023.
Laurence Booth, editor of Wisden, said: “After captaining Australia in the World Test Championship, Pat Cummins saved the Ashes – thanks in no small part to his late-order runs in the first Test at Edgbaston – then led Australia to victory. The World Cup final in India in 2023, the most by any seamer in world cricket. Has not taken more than 42 Test wickets.
Sciver-Brunt, meanwhile, is recognized as the preeminent female cricketer of the moment, especially in light of her pivotal role in the Women’s Ashes, in which she produced back-to-back ODI centuries to take the multi-format series. to the wire.
She followed those performances with an England-record 66-ball century against Sri Lanka, but Mumbai Indians recognized her global appeal at the inaugural Women’s Premier League auction in February, where her £320,000 price tag made her the UK’s highest-paid woman. A team player.
The exciting nature of both the men’s and women’s Ashes, played simultaneously in June and July 2023, is reflected in the Anglo-Aussie flavor for Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Year – which a player can only win once in their career and is judged by their performance during the English home season.
“Wood turned the Ashes on its head,” Booth said. “He topped the pace at 96mph, took five for 34 and literally and figuratively repelled Australia. In total, he took 14 for just 20 as England squared the series 2-0.”
The other notable award at this year’s publication goes to West Indian Hayley Mathews, who became the first woman to be named the Leading Twenty20 Cricketer after winning eight consecutive T20I matches, during which she averaged 88 runs with the bat. A strike-rate of 144, and 12 with the ball.
The compelling nature of the Ashes battle has been a constant theme of this year’s almanac, with England’s ultra-aggressive “baseball” approach to the series already fueling demand for this summer’s Test series, Booth points out in the editor’s notes. West Indies.
“Amid the bleak outlook for Test cricket, here was a glimmer of hope: proof that if you put on a performance, bums will fill the seats,” he wrote. “And the 2023 Ashes was as good a performance as 1981 and 2005. But for the rain in Manchester, it would have rivaled Australia’s Don Bradman-inspired 1936-37 win, still the only series won by a team in Test history. They were 2-0 down.
“The scoreline was almost secondary. For the first time since English cricket disappeared behind the paywall, it felt like a people’s sport: baseball was on their lips and before long in Collins’ dictionary.”
Fittingly, the series was capped by one of the most enduring Ashes contenders of modern times, Stuart Broad, who took his 604th and final Test wicket in the last ball of the series. In his notes, Booth hails him as “the maker of England’s memories.”
“The best players don’t simply pile up the stats (although their final tally makes you tired just thinking about it),” Booth wrote. “He leaves an impression. More than (James) Anderson, Brad was the maker of England’s memories, the curator of the family album. A rule of thumb emerged: If Brad’s knees were pumping, so was England’s blood.”
Elsewhere in his notes, Booth pleads for a reassessment of the spirit of cricket, a concept that came under intense scrutiny after Bairstow’s controversial stumping in the Lord’s Test, and criticizes the game’s administrators for undermining the competitive nature of international cricket. Increasingly unequal distribution of ICC’s income.
“In the age of global television, the West Indians have been the most damaged of the major Test teams,” Booth wrote. “India’s slice of the pie has grown from less than 25% to 38.5%, or close to $230m a year … the West Indies gets 4.58%, or $27.5m.
“Yet this is where cricket finds itself, bemoaning the idea of obeying market forces, but feeding the West Indian game with backhanded compliments, all it needs is hard cash. There is plenty of it in cricket’s central pot. Is it beyond the wits of managers to distribute according to need, not greed?