Wisden Cricketer of The Year - 2018

Now these will not be known until next spring when the almanac is published however as one of the rules is that it is based on performances in the last English season, we can now discuss who should be honoured for the season just finished. Remembering that players can only receive the award once who do people feel should be under consideration?


Personally I feel that Virat Kohli and Morne Morkel should be absolute shoe-ins. After that it gets a bit more interesting. Sam Curran as player of the series for England v India will be a contender, as will Rory Burns and Tom Bailey as the Leading runscorer and wicket taker in CC D1.

Good thread, Tiger.

Although I don't rave about Sam Curran as much as many others, I still like him. I just feel it's still too soon to make a definitive judgement. That plus my preferring to reward players with a Wisden award at or towards the end of their careers means he wouldn't get support from me here.

Bailey is a good and interesting call. I think it's fair to say he's generally gone under the radar as far as many cricket posters are concerned. His 64 wickets is a very fine achievement and even more so as he was playing for a team who ended the season being relegated. It's always more difficult for an individual to perform well in a struggling team.

Following on from that last comment, I would also give a shout to Daryl Mitchell of also relegated Worcs who ended the season with a more than decent batting record and most number of outfield catches (think that's right) whilst combining that with all his work as chairman of the PCA. JDizzle was rightly singing his praises on the ''County Championship'' thread the other week.

Morkel probably being ''an absolute shoe in'' as you say is likely to rule out his Surrey colleague Clarke although I would give him a shout too. Although approaching the twilight of his career, a thoroughly reliable player this year with the ball, bat and in the field who contributed significantly to Surrey's Championship win.

No doubt at least one of the awards will go to a woman but that's not a part of the game I follow much.

They gave 3 awards to female players last year on the back of the World Cup. To be honest the women's game this season has been much lower key. Prior to that female players had been awarded twice in 2009 and 2014. I suspect all 5 will be male.

I agree with you GB about Curran in general, but as this award only ever looks at a single English season it can mean a player gets it very early and sometimes big players never get it.

Another contender will be Jos Buttler. He has scored over 1,000 for England this season (across all 3 formats) the only player to do so.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Tammy Beaumont nominated - she had a monster summer with the bat, in particular the three consecutive ODI hundreds, which I think was the first time an English woman has done that

James Hildreth is the only other name I would throw in. I believe he was the top scorer in domestic cricket across all three formats this summer, although his case would be a lot stronger if Somerset had managed to win either the CC or T20 which they had strong showings in. He would be some what of a lifetime achievement winner, similar to what Daryl Mitchell would get it for and I wouldn't begrudge either of them getting a spot.

Also Mohammad Abbas took 50 wickets for Leics at 17 in the CC, as well as taking 10 wickets at 14 in the Test series vs England winning Player of the Series.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:I wouldn't be surprised to see Tammy Beaumont nominated - she had a monster summer with the bat, in particular the three consecutive ODI hundreds, which I think was the first time an English woman has done that

Well you made a good call there Olly.

Of my two "shoe ins" Kohli made it, Morkel did not. They were joined by Burns, Curran and Buttler. Only the latter not mentioned in despatches above.

A lukewarm reaction to Sam Curran's award from a few of the Oval regulars last week. In contrast, Burns was viewed as well deserved.

I guess Curran was the story of the summer, for England anyway.

It is a tricky award, given it only covers the English summer, you can only be named once and there are 5 to give out.