adminAn award that by tradition can only be won once by a player in their career, the honour – which is the editor’s choice alone – primarily but not exclusively reflects performances in the previous English season.
South Africa won a three-match series 2-0 with Amla becoming the first South African to score a Test triple hundred in their triumph at The Oval and going on to top score in eight international innings out of 11 on tour.
Kallis, the pre-eminent all-rounder of his generation, made 182 at The Oval while still bowling at genuinely sharp pace.
If Kallis is regarded as the best all-rounder now in the game, Steyn has the same status as a fast bowler with the Proteas’ spearhead’s career statistics standing comparison with some of the greatest quicks the game has known.
He overpowered England at The Oval and then starred again when South Africa took the series at Lord’s to replace their hosts as the world’s top Test side.
The other two winners of this year’s award were England batsman Nick Compton, who was honoured for his county exploits with Somerset, and West Indies’ Marlon Samuels.
Compton joins his celebrated grandfather and England batting great Denis, who earned the accolade in 1939.
Meanwhile, Australia captain Michael Clarke was named leading cricketer in the world after a 2012 aggregate of 1 595 runs, including a score of 329 not out against India in Sydney. That innings – just shy of the Australian Test record of 334 held jointly by Don Bradman and Mark Taylor – ended as a result of Clarke’s own declaration.
Clarke has now received a pre-Ashes boost from Wisden that could be seen as either fair-minded or unpatriotic, with his selection as the world’s outstanding cricketer in 2012.
Clarke has still not won universal acceptance in Australia as the national captain, provoking controversy most recently with his key role in the decision to discipline four players including his vice-captain Shane Watson for failing to obey the management on the disastrous Test tour of India, during which he suffered the recurrence of a back problem that raised questions over his fitness this summer.
He has also been hospitalised with gastroenteritis since returning home to Sydney, so becoming the first Australian to win the Wisden award since Shane Warne in 2004 might give Clarke, who turned 32 last week, a timely lift.
South Africa’s domination of Test cricket, and specifically of the 2012 summer when they displaced England from the top of the official world rankings, is recognised with the selection of three of their players — Amla, Steyn and Kallis — among Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year.
Amla is top of the official world Test batting rankings, Steyn has long reigned as the best bowler, and the only surprise about Kallis’s selection is that he has not been one of the Five before – he is now 37, and made his Test debut way back in 1995, as noted in the poignant essay that marks his achievement in the 150th edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack (published on Thursday) which was one of the last pieces written by Christopher Martin-Jenkins. — Sport24.
Online Reporter