The Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year 2023 has been announced and Ben Foakes, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell, Harmanpreet Kaur, and Matthew Potts became the winners of this year. While Ben Stokes was also named the men's leading cricketer of the year 2023.
Harmanpreet Kaur became the first Indian female who made her name in Wisden's top cricketer's list. She has been chosen for her individual brilliance mainly in the shorter format of the game. She made a magnificent century against England and score 143 runs in 111 balls at Canterbury. Also, she led her team to win against England, the first win since 1999. She was also the captain of the Indian side and won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Read Also: BCCI issued a statement on the fitness of Jasprit Bumrah and Shreyas Iyer
Among New Zealand's cricketers, Tom Blundell & Daryl Mitchell made their names in Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year 2023. Both of them were in form and scored 383 & 538 uns respectively against England in 2022. Blundell scored an unbeaten 88 in the final test along with 96 runs at Lords. Mitchell also was in a good form and his average was 107 in the series. Mitchell became the 15th New Zealand men's player to score a Test century at Lord's and the fifth New Zealand player to score hundreds in three successive Tests.
Ben Foakes named Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year 2023
Ben Foakes also named in this list, has been part of the England team who won six out of seven test matches. Foakes played a crucial role to win the first test match against NZ and he put up a match-winning 118 runs partnership with Joe Root. Later he also added a 173 runs partnership with Ben Stokes and leveled the series against South Africa.
Read Also: Most centuries by a team in IPL history
Ben Stokes won Wisden's Leading Cricketer award for the third time in 2023 after he won 2020 & 2021. Lastly, he won for the performance in bat and ball and this year for the third time in four years he won the award for his leadership skills. Stokes has won 10 out of 12 tests since he was named as the captain of the English test side. Along with the wins against New Zealand, India, and South Africa, he also led his team to a historic series victory in Pakistan.
Matthew Pots is the other player who featured Wisden's five cricketers of the year 2023. He made his test debut against NZ and took Williamson's wicket in the fifth ball of his international cricket. He took 20 wickets in 5 test matches and also became the first English bowler who took six or more six-wickets-hauls in the County Championship season.
Suryakumar Yadav was also named as the leading Twenty20 Cricketer in the World. He scored 1,000 T20I runs in a calendar year in 2022 with a strike rate of 187.41 in 31 innings. He also scored two brilliant centuries against England in Nottingham and New Zealand at Mount Maunganui.