Top 5 contenders for the Cricketer of the Year award
De Villiers has played only one Test this year, thus ruling him out of contentionIt has been a strange year in cricket so far. Some teams like South Africa have hardly played any Tests, which is why AB de Villiers, the world’s best batsman and cricket’s MVP, doesn’t figure in this list in spite of being sensational in the ODI format. Similarly, there is no Indian on this list either because the number of Tests they have played are quite few. Ravichandran Ashwin was India’s best bet, but he misses out narrowly.We have picked up players who have performed well in at least two of the three formats. The quality of runs or wickets has also been an important factor, which is why Angelo Mathews narrowly edges ahead of Moeen Ali who has scored runs and taken wickets for England. Mathews has largely fought one-man battles this year as skipper of a team whose strengths have depleted substantially.However, most of the places have been taken by batsmen, some of whom are bound to end up as legends of the game and who are already making huge waves in cricket. Two of them have already tasted captaincy!
#5 Kane Williamson
An elegant player to watch, Kane Williamson has slowly emerged as the bedrock of the New Zealand batting and is already being counted amongst the four next-generation superstars – Smith, Root and Kohli being the other three.
Williamson is ODI cricket’s most prolific run-scorer this year with 1317 runs at an average of 57.26. With 3 tons and 8 half-centuries, he scores his runs at a strike-rate of 90 despite being a technically correct batsman. Williamson also has 476 runs in only 3 Tests at an average of 95.20 having scored two centuries and a half-century in 6 innings, one of the tons being an unbeaten 242*.