When you are along side Neil McKenzie and James Anderson, you’d almost have to say no to the award.
McKenzie’s 2008 was so good he was dropped 2 tests into 2009, and his 2008 yielded 3 hundreds in 14 tests.
And James Anderson averaged 29 in tests, and 74 in one dayers.
Surely CWB’s Holly Colvin would have been the better option than either of these two muppets.
Boucher also made it, um, that is cool, not sure why he is there. Averaged 27 against England and 33 over all, made one hundred for the year against Bangladesh. If he was picked because Sclyd Berry likes him I can respect that.
And ofcourse the token county player, also a South African, Dale Benkenstein, who had a cracking year.
While it is great that Wisden finally recognised women’s cricket, it’s just a shame Claire had to share the honour with lesser cricketers.
Ofcourse the whole system is a bit of a joke, if I was Claire I would refuse to be involved at all.
I have to admit, I was quite surprised to see that Jimmy Anderson and Neil McK, of all people, were selected! Boucher, too, was surprising! I suppose Scyld Berry was bereft of inspiration, so he decided to take the next best players. Perhaps, he could’ve, like you said, picked some more women cricketers who have won an ICC event for the second time, unlike the men’s team, who haven’t won any.
Its sort of showing wat a sad year cricket we had… but tats not true.. aint it so . some great test matches.. better results.. close cricketing rivalries.. and already in 09 we have eng with 51 comic stuff.. wow…. and they could see Boucher!! sweet potatoes!! watever was WIS_DUMB Scyld Berry watchin!!! Shakib al hasan now tats a name u dont forget …. Mendis was mean an murderous ! Graeme Smith has made a habit scoring thousand runs in a calendar year.. Mitch johnson has been on n on like someone forgot to switch the machine OFF. Even Claire will smile gettin a name along side theirs… I guess Sachin was’n so bad either !!
With the inclusion of Boucher you get the feeling that someone at Wisden realised that he hadn’t been selected before and thought they had better do so before he retires. I think it’s hard to argue that he was an outstanding player in 2008 but certainly was one of the most consistent players of the last 10 years not to have been previously chosen.
Mark Boucher should not even be in the SA test team. His contibution is dubious. AB should be told that he will be keeping, and this would allow Botha to squeeze into the test side. This would another bowler/batsman. And no player has the right to tell his coach and/or captain where he will or will not bat or field!!
The “honour” will always be that she had a much better year in English cricket than the other 4 mentioned. Well at least 3 of them. And everyone will remember this. The problem that Berry now has is that he has created a proverbial can of worms, and the performances of the other 4 do probably not stand up against the best 4 performances of within the English woman cricket team (after Taylor).
Another question for Berry, how did Graham Napier miss out? He has his own website for Christ’s sake
Cricket Eunuch – I think a player has the right to decide whether or not they want to wicketkeep, though, don’t you?
I think Boucher just got the “lifetime acheivement” award. They obviously know something we don’t.
Agree with everything everyone’s said, but there are a couple of things about the Wisden 5 that we should bear in mind which mean that it’s never going to be the same as a “top 5 cricketers in the world that year” list:
1) It’s meant to be based around the English season, so however amazing someone has been in that year, if they didn’t have an influence on the English season they don’t get a look in.
2) You can only get it once.
If an in-form Jesse had made it over for the tour last year, I bet he’d have been a shoo-in. Ditto Graeme Smith if he hadn’t won it already.
Poopsie, it’d have to be a really miserable year for English cricket if Wisden picked someone for slogging 150 in a Twenty20 match.
I know Dave, but if you compare that one innings of entertainment against everything Boucher did over that entire summer, you would have to conclude that Napier was more deserving. Which highlights how ridiculous the rules for awarding the Wisden Cricketer of the Year are. Boucher’s only contribution to English cricket was to give the spectators someone to despise