Cover star Root on top of world
WISDEN TITLE FOR ENGLAND RUN MACHINE
JOE ROOT has taken England team-mate Ben Stokes’ crown by being named the world’s best cricketer by Wisden.
Just days after standing down as England Test captain, Root has claimed the 2021 title in the men’s game from 2019 and 2020 winner Stokes, the player who is expected to follow him at the helm.
Root is featured on the front cover in familiar pose, playing a classical cover drive, adding yet more runs to his incredible tally of 1,708 for the year.
His difficulties as captain were in complete contrast to his remarkable feats as a batsman as he collected six Test hundreds and scored more than three times as many runs as his nearest team-mate.
Only Sir Don Bradman and Sir Garry Sobers scored a greater percentage of their team’s runs across a calendar year than Root’s 26.21 for England in 2021.
South African batter Lizelle Lee takes the crown as the leading woman cricketer in the world for her stunning ODI form, while Pakistan batter Mohammad Rizwan earns the title as the best T20 cricketer.
The oldest individual award in the game, though, is to be named as one of Wisden’s five cricketers of the year, which can only happen once.
England bowler Ollie Robinson, above, is named alongside India’s Jasprit Bumrah and Rohit Sharma, New Zealand’s Devon Conway and South Africa’s Dane van Niekerk, who lit up the women’s Hundred. This year’s Wisden Almanack is back to normal size following a Covidimpacted slimmed-down version last year and attempts to resume its place as the game’s conscience.
ECB chief executive Tom Harrison is caught squarely in the crosshairs for keeping his share of a £2.1million bonus for forcing through The Hundred despite overseeing 62 job losses. There is extensive attention paid to the spectre of racism and discrimination that hangs over the game, with the ECB again taken to task.
● The 159th edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack is published by Bloomsbury.