LONDON — Virat Kohli was Wednesday named as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year and also became the first player to win the award for leading cricketer in the world in three successive years.

The India captain put to bed questions over his ability to thrive in English conditions last year, topping the Test run charts with 593 runs and two centuries even though his side lost the series 4-1.

Kohli, who is top of the Test and One-Day International rankings, scored 2,735 runs in all formats in 2018, outstripping nearest rival, England’s Joe Root, by more than 700 runs.

“His struggles in English conditions were consigned to history, and Kohli banished any doubt about being regarded as the outstanding player of the era,” Wisden said in a statement announcing its awards.

The other cricketers of the year were England’s Sam Curran, Jos Buttler and Rory Burns, plus prolific England women’s player Tammy Beaumont.

Players can only receive Wisden’s cricketer of the year award, given primarily for feats achieved during the preceding English domestic season, once in their career.

Kohli was also named as the leading men’s player in the world for a third straight year.

“In making hundreds in South Africa, England and Australia, as well as at home, he showed a mastery of all conditions and bowling attacks,” Wisden said. “The pressure never cowed him.”

India’s Smriti Mandhana scooped the women’s award, with Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan retaining his title as leading Twenty20 cricketer in the world.

The latest edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, considered the “Bible” of the game, is published on April 11.

Wisden lashes out at new

100-ball cricket competition

English cricket’s controversial new 100-ball competition has been compared unfavorably with Brexit in the latest edition of Wisden, which says the innovation has “hung over the game like the Sword of Damocles”.

The 156th edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, published Thursday, offers a highly skeptical take on The Hundred, the new format due to debut on the domestic circuit next year.

Editor Lawrence Booth addresses the subject and has harsh words for advocates at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).

“All the while The Hundred hung over the English game like the Sword of Damocles, suspended only by the conviction of a suited few.

“Some preferred a modern analogy: this was cricket’s Brexit, an unnecessary gamble that had overshadowed all else, gone over budget and would end in tears.

“But the analogy was imperfect: where Brexit had plenty of advocates, it was difficult to find anyone beyond a small group within the ECB’s offices who believed that cricket, its fixture list already unfathomable, needed a fourth format.”

The editorial criticizes the “shambolic launch” of the competition, arguing that early soundbites made the sport’s existing fanbase “feel like outcasts” while attempting to attract a new core.

Critics have bemoaned the ‘dumbing down’ of the game, given plans to ditch traditional overs, and questioned the need for a new format given the global popularity of Twenty20, which has just 20 more deliveries per innings than the Hundred concept.

There are also concerns over the potential impact of the new competition on England’s existing domestic cricket structure, which is built upon 18 first-class counties. — Agencies