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The 2024 edition of the Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack was published this month – here are some facts and figures celebrating the world famous book.
2014
– The year Wisden introduced a leading women’s cricketer of the year award. Australians won it in five of the first nine years.
2003
– First year that Wisden introduced a leading men’s cricketer of the year award.
1913
– The year John Wisden, founder of the almanack, was the only person chosen as a cricketer of the year – despite having died 29 years earlier.
2009
– Year that Claire Taylor became the first woman to be included in the annual five cricketers of the year selections.
4
Pat Cummins, the 2024 leading men’s award winner, is the fourth Australian to win the accolade – Ricky Ponting (2003), Shane Warne (2004, pictured above) and Michael Clarke (2012) are the others.
10
Pat Cummins (pictured below), led Australia to their sixth men’s 50-over World Cup win in 2023 – all six coming in the last 10 tournaments.
2
– Only two players have been chosen as one of Wisden’s five cricketers of the year more than once – Pelham ‘Plum’ Warner (1921) and Jack Hobbs (1926).
42
– Balls taken by Harry Brook, one of Wisden’s five 2024 cricketers of the year, to smash a century in The Hundred last year, playing for Northern Superchargers in Leeds. Brook hit 11 fours and seven sixes in his unbeaten 105.
363
– Runs scored by Harry Brook at a shade over 40 in his maiden Ashes series against the Australians, capped by a fourth-innings turn of 75 in the pressure of a must-win home Test at Headingley in 2023.
1889
– The first year of Wisden’s annual player of the year awards. The first edition featured six bowlers, the second six batsmen and the third, in 1891, six wicket-keepers.
1st
– Nat Sciver-Brunt this month become the first English woman to be honoured as Wisden’s leading cricketer in the world.
£320,000
– Sciver-Brunt’s Indian Premier League contract with Mumbai Indians, making her the UK’s highest-paid female team athlete.
Nat Sciver-Brunt of England in action against Sri Lanka during the 3rd One Day International between England and Sri Lanka. Picture: Gareth Copley/Getty Images.
4
– English players won the men’s leading cricketer award four years running
– Ben Stokes (2019/ 2020/ 2022, pictured above) and Joe Root (2021, pictured below).
66
– Balls taken to Sciver-Brunt by Nat against reach a hundred new Sri Lanka, a English record.
10
– Australian Ashleigh Gardner this year became the 10th women to be named as one of Wisden’s five cricketers of the year.
3
– In 2007, Wisden announced a list of ‘notional’ leading men’s cricket of the year awards spanning 1900-2002. English players won 10 of the first 15 awards but only three in the final 39 years – Fred Trueman (1963), Ian Botham (1981) and Graham Gooch (1990).
17
– Age of Harry Calder, who was one of five schoolboys named as Wisden’s players of the year in 1918 – there having been no first class cricket the previous year due to the war. He remains the only Wisden award winner never to have played first-class cricket.
3
– Nat Sciver-Brunt hit three ODI centuries in five innings 2023, including two Ashes tons inthe space of 72 hours as England came from 6-0 down to draw the marquee series 8-8.
2
– Australian sporting all-rounder Ellyse Perry, (pictured), has won the Wisden’s leading cricketer of the year award twice (2016 and 2019). She is also the only person to have represented her country in the cricket World Cup and the football World Cup.
3
– Indian’s Virat Kohli (pictured), is the only player to win the men’s leading cricketer award three years in a row (2016-2018).