BUY WISDEN CRICKET MONTHLY ISSUE 64

Representatives from England and Australia took over half the votes between them. Players from India received just seven votes, less than Pakistan and South Africa, as only one Indian player – wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant – made the final XI.

Ben Stokes is one of the three England players to earn selection. After taking over the England Test captaincy in April last year, Stokes led England to eight wins out of nine games in 2022 including series wins at home over New Zealand and South Africa, and an unprecedented 3-0 away win in Pakistan.

The 31-year-old largely matched his career numbers in the year, averaging 36 with the bat and 31 with the ball, but impressed with his captaincy as WCM’s panel labelled him “omnipotent”.

“He doesn’t need to post big numbers or play any T20 warm-ups before a world tournament to be assured of his right place in the vanguard of all that is positive about the game in this country,” the magazine wrote. “He is not merely a superstar, he’s the most important England captain since Hussain.”

Aside from a year of astute captaincy, Stokes’ greatest individual performance came against South Africa at Old Trafford, where he made 103 against an attack featuring Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje and Lungi Ngidi while also prising two top-order wickets in each innings.

Jonny Bairstow was another England player to make the list after striking four hundreds in five innings during the summer, acting as the initial frontman to the new style of play brought in by Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes.

He passed 1,000 Test runs in a year for the second time, and scored six of his 12 hundreds in the format in the space of just seven months.

The final England player on the list was James Anderson, who at the age of 40 is continuing to hunt down the 700-wicket milestone. The Lancashire quick took 36 wickets at a shade under 20 last year, two decades on from his international debut.

Pat Cummins, Australia Test captain, claimed 36 wickets at 21.83 and led his side to series wins over England, Pakistan, West Indies and South Africa in the period to earn selection, alongside countrymen Marnus Labuschagne, Usman Khawaja, and Nathan Lyon. Khawaja was recalled to the Australia side for the first Test of 2022, and starred with four hundreds and five fifties.

Other notable mentions on the list include South Africa’s Marco Jansen (36 wickets at 19), Pakistan’s Babar Azam, (1,184 runs at 70), and West Indies’ Kraigg Brathwaite (687 runs at 62).

WCM also picked a Women’s Cross-Format XI for 2022, featuring three Australians, three Indians, two England players, two South Africans and a New Zealander. India’s Harmanpreet Kaur was named captain of the side.

READ: Wisden’s Women’s ODI Team of the Year

READ: Wisden’s Women’s T20I Team of the Year

2022 in Review: Wisden Cricket Monthly’s Men’s Test team of the year

Usman Khawaja
Kraigg Brathwaite
Marnus Labuschagne
Babar Azam
Jonny Bairstow
Ben Stokes
Rishabh Pant (wk)
Pat Cummins
Marco Jansen
Nathan Lyon
James Anderson

2022 in Review: Wisden Cricket Monthly’s Cross-Format Women’s XI

Smriti Mandhana
Alyssa Healy (wk)
Laura Wolvaardt
Beth Mooney
Nat Sciver
Harmanpreet Kaur (c)
Amelia Kerr
Tahlia McGrath
Deepti Sharma
Sophie Ecclestone
Shabnim Ismail

Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.