Wisden announces five cricketers of the year
The self-delusional notion that England is the centre of the cricketing universe was what obviously prompted the Wisden Cricket Almanack to announce the five cricketers of the year, the list comprising not one or two or three but five Englishmen - Andrew Strauss, Ashley Giles, Marcus Trescothick, Robert Key and Steve Harmison in the latest edition. Shane Warne was named the cricketer of the year. The fact that he would be moving to England may not necessarily have influenced the editor's choice. Exclusive extracts available at The Times.
How on earth can Wisden ignore the top batsmen and bowlers of 2004? Even assuming that their choice was limited since you only become a cricketer of the year once, they could still have picked a few non-Englishmen, perhaps as a token gesture? Of course, I do sympathise with them since the 2006 edition is unlikely to feature a single English cricketer after an Ashes year.
Labels: wisden
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed -
|
Yes, no wonder very cricket fans few outside England (and maybe Aus) take Wisden ratings seriously !
By the way, how come Warne was included ? Does that mean he has not YET been named cricketer of the year ?
And rightly said about the Eng delusions of being the 'mai-baap' of cricket :-) Mike Artherton in a column during the recent Eng-SA ODI series, while making a case for return of James Anderson said that he is one of the rare breed of swing bowlers. Not many around today, except maybe Rana Naveed from Pakistan (hmm...maybe a token gesture to make Anderson+Rana sound like a 'global' list, or maybe he took time out to watch VB series, one of the few non-English matches he watches :-)
By 
worma (6 Apr 2005, 5:10:00 pm)
we've written about that a couple of months ago.
By Jagadish (6 Apr 2005, 5:14:00 pm)
Oh, good ! Yeah, Irfan is just one name that comes to mind. There are few others as well, Balaji, Tuffey, Bond, Sami, Shoaib (mainly reverse), Ajit Agarkar, Bond (if he is still around :-)...and I'm sure there are quite many others I may be missing right now.
By worma (6 Apr 2005, 5:48:00 pm)
Editor's perogative- you were never going to get a one man choice that would please everyone. Warne's award was seperate- the 'Leading Cricketer of the Year' is a new one.
As for the English nature of the Rive- well, the English did win an awful lot of Tests in 2004. The other thing is, you can only be in the 'Five' once so many of the other leading players of 2004 would not be eligible. Given that England hadn't won much before, they were bound to have a good haul this year.
And yes, they might struggle to get a nominee in 2006.
Scott Wickstein
Scott, you have a point there ! This wasn't supposed to be a general English bashing from me, specially on their cricket.
Because besides Aus (and Ind for personal reason)I believe they are the ones adding to fun value of cricket, specially Flintoff !
But it did seem strange that they chose all five english. And that doesnt mean that I wanted them to satisfy me (by lets say, chossing Sehwag). Any non-english talent might have been sufficient.
But it is also true that the popularity and credibility of wisden is not very high in India, maybe due to these kind of reasons. But it is still quite ok if they cater more to local audience (there are quite a few of these award ceremonies in India where they get token international players to show 'global' reach )
By worma (7 Apr 2005, 12:52:00 am)
Robert key in top 5.. Well he is a joke and his selection is another. All his runs against WI and SA who are languishing at the bottom of the Test rankings. I predict the Ashes result to be 4-0 with one match being washed out!
-Ajith
Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year is an award given to players who have excelled in the English summer. (And who have not previously been named on of the five cricketers of the year).
Given that none of last summer's tourists played particularly brilliantly it's less surprising than it might otherwise be that five Englishmen have been selected. Odd, however, that no overseas player plying his trade in the county championship was picked.
Anyway, the "international player of the year award" given to Warne is a relatively new accolade designed to recognise those who've had a particularly fruitful year. I think you can win this more than once.
So, not England claiming to be better than they are: just Wisden recognising that it is, first and foremost, an annual chronicle of the English domestic season - with, of course, many more goodies as well.
What would be interesting would be if they decided to launch an Indian version along the lines of the Wisden Australia alamnack. I suspect it might be quite successful - unless there already is such a publication in India.
We'd prefer if you posted comments with your real name to add more credibility to your opinions. However, the moderators reserve the right to delete comments, especially those containing offensive or unsuitable language. The opinions in the comments are your own views. You are welcome to provide a URL to your own cricket blog, but the moderators reserve the right to delete comments which only reference sites for viewing live streams.
Links within entries open in a new window. Some of the links may now be broken/not take you to the expected report since the original content providers may have archived/removed the contents. Some of the sites linked may require registration/subscription.
All opinions expressed are those of the authors alone. The authors' respective employers (past, present or future) are in no way connected to the opinions expressed here.
All pictures, photographs used are copyrights of the original owners. We do not intend to infringe on any copyright. Pictures and photographs are used here to merely accentuate and enhance the content value to our readers.
|
|
|
|
Post a Comment