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Virat Kohli has been named as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year. The India captain is joined by England’s Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran and Tammy Beaumont in receiving the honour.
Kohli has also been named as the men’s Leading Cricketer in the World, a feat he has now accomplished three years in a row. His compatriot Smriti Mandhana, meanwhile, has been named as the women’s Leading Cricketer in the World for 2018.
Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan has been named as Wisden’s Leading Twenty20 Cricketer in the World for the second year in a row.
The Five Cricketers of the Year are chosen by Lawrence Booth, the editor of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, with the 2019 version serving as the 156th edition.
Kohli topped the run charts in India’s 4-1 Test series defeat to England last summer. On the naming of the batsman as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year, Booth says: “Despite finishing on the losing side, India captain Virat Kohli shone with the bat, laying to rest his struggles in England in 2014 by scoring a magnificent 593 runs in five Tests, a full 244 more than his nearest rival on either side.”
With Kohli also being crowned as the Leading Cricketer of the World in 2018 – he hit 2,735 runs across the international formats – Booth adds: “His Test batting, especially in England, was magnificent, while his 50-over form moved to a new level – if that was possible.”
On Mandhana being named as the other Leading Cricketer in the World, Booth writes: “Smriti Mandhana rose to prominence in 2018 with a string of eye-catching innings for India, racking up more runs – 1,291 – than anyone in the limited-overs formats. She passed 50 on 13 occasions.”
Rashid, meanwhile, won the same award in successive years. “He claimed 96 wickets in all T20 matches – a record for a calendar year – and proved hard to hit in whichever tournament he played,” Booth writes.