Steve Smith, Ellyse Perry, Virat Kohli, Dale Steyn and AB de Villiers have been named as the five Wisden Cricketers of the Decade. Each of them were profiled on wisden.com:
Read Phil Walker’s full profile of Smith here.
Read Isabelle Westbury’s full profile of Perry here.
Read Lawrence Booth’s full profile of Kohli here.
Read Jo Harman’s full profile of Steyn here.
Read Ben Gardner’s full profile of de Villiers here.
Wisden’s decade in review series is brought to you in association with Perry, designers of distinctive club blazers made in Yorkshire since 1946. Vote in the decade in review readers’ survey.
Steve Smith
“Above all else, AB de Villiers should be remembered for his blocking. Only one other batsman this decade – Hashim Amla – has faced more than 200 balls in a Test innings for less than 50 runs. De Villiers has done so three times, a feat putting him level with New Zealand’s John Wright atop this particular all-time tree.
“There are, of course, many lists which de Villiers heads, most of which demarcate his status as the most limitless batsman of his generation, including the treble of the fastest ODI 50, 100, and 150. But it’s the anti-hitting record which gets to the heart of what makes de Villiers untouchable. Put simply, during his extended peak, he was able to do basically everything, and do it better than basically everyone else in the world.”
