Many ‘best players’ but only one ‘best cricketer’

The highlight of the year had to be the Ashes, the disappointment was the Super Series and the genuine low was the situation in Zimbabwe. It was so grim it made the controversies in Indian cricket seem acceptable. The Ashes showed that even world champion teams can be made to look like they are caught in the headlights, the Super Series flop reconfirmed the theory that a collection of people is not a team and the heartlessness of the cricket regime in Zimbabwe is killing the game there.

Many people put their hands up for player of the year. Four would enter almost every short list. Andrew Flintoff would probably top that with 709 runs and 68 wickets in Test matches and some fantastic performances in the one-day game. It is nice to see someone about whom big things have been expected since 1999 finally come good.

Some take to success like a fish to water, some need to be hurt to fire themselves. He is the only genuine all-rounder in the game (Jacques Kallis, with 1011 runs and 20 wickets, is now a batsman who can bowl a few overs) but he earned respect in the cricket world as much for his performances as for his ability to respect the deeds of the opposition.

I believe Shane Warne, for all his bluster and big talk, falls into that category as well. His 40 wickets in the Ashes series was the bowling performance of the year. For once he got as much as he gave and he proved he was sporting enough to acknowledge it.

His personal life, largely through his own doing, was collapsing around him and where another cricketer might have wanted to take time off, or would have been distracted enough, he wasn’t a lesser Australian cricketer for it. Really, he only has the leg break now, and the odd flipper to give it company, but watching him bowl is no less exciting.

Two batsmen will make that cut. Ricky Ponting, with 1,544 runs and 6 centuries, had another batting year to remember and few will grudge him the recognition for the best batsman in world cricket today. Some called his leadership soft, he certainly showed himself to be a bit cranky at times, but his Australian team only slipped a bit from its pedestal.

With great teams, little slips make big news; indeed, there is no all-conditions cricket team in sight to challenge them for number one. The most breathtaking player of the year, though, was Brian Lara with 1110 runs at 65.29. In his 36th year he made five centuries and when he was in form, cricket was like the song of freedom. The more runs he makes, the more his team loses and he has probably now broken free of the result his team is going to generate. And so we watch Lara versus the opposition and, to be honest, something dies in a cricket match when he is out.

You could take your pick from any of those four as player of the year and you wouldn’t be inviting too much criticism. But my choice of cricketer of the year goes a little further; towards two men who played bigger roles, who showed the character that we were told cricket is meant to give birth to among its practitioners.
Muralitharan took 52 wickets from 8 matches and built 220 houses in tsunami affected Galle.

Inside a wicked spinner lies a sympathetic heart and he is my joint cricketer of the year along with Tatenda Taibu. At 22, Taibu is the wicketkeeper, the best batsman in the side by a mile (607 at 43.36 in perpetually losing causes) and when he should be enjoying a prank, he is captain of the cricket team of a beleaguered nation and a hero to young black boys who should be playing cricket.

The hot blood of youth rarely flows within, dignity like a cloak covers him and he is willing to speak on behalf of his cricketers and his country. When he complained, he was threatened and left to play cricket in Bangladesh. I think Murali would be large hearted enough to say that Taibu deserves to be cricketer of the year on his own.