Breaking records is healthy. Breaking traditions is a grey area. And selecting only four, not five, Wisden Cricketers of the Year was not a decision I took lightly because the honour is the oldest in cricket.
But selecting only Four Wisden Cricketers of the Year had to be done this time, because I did not think a player could enter the hall of fame after being found guilty of a serious violation of the International Cricket Council’s code of conduct, and banned.
There was no question about Jonathan Trott’s selection, as England’s great stock-piler of Test and one-day runs. Nor about Tamim Iqbal, the first Bangladeshi to be a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. Not once in Australia were England’s Test bowlers crashed and trashed as they were by Tamim in his two hundreds at Lord’s and Old Trafford.
No question about Chris Read after his wicketkeeping, batting and captaining Nottinghamshire to the County Championship. Nor about Eoin Morgan, as a pillar of the team that won, at last, England’s first global trophy, the World Twenty20, and is already England’s finest limited-overs batsman ever.
Now the fifth Cricketer of the Year, I can reveal, was going to be one of three Pakistan players - Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir - until they were banned by the ICC’s independent tribunal for the bowling of deliberate no-balls in the fourth Test at Lord’s.
Each had a strong case for selection. Butt took over the Test captaincy when Shahid Afridi resigned after a reign of one Test, then played match-winning innings as Pakistan defeated Australia and England: a real captain, so we all thought, about to give Pakistan the stability they needed.
There was no question about Jonathan Trott’s selection, as England’s great stock-piler of Test and one-day runs. Nor about Tamim Iqbal, the first Bangladeshi to be a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. Not once in Australia were England’s Test bowlers crashed and trashed as they were by Tamim in his two hundreds at Lord’s and Old Trafford.
No question about Chris Read after his wicketkeeping, batting and captaining Nottinghamshire to the County Championship. Nor about Eoin Morgan, as a pillar of the team that won, at last, England’s first global trophy, the World Twenty20, and is already England’s finest limited-overs batsman ever.
Now the fifth Cricketer of the Year, I can reveal, was going to be one of three Pakistan players - Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir - until they were banned by the ICC’s independent tribunal for the bowling of deliberate no-balls in the fourth Test at Lord’s.
Each had a strong case for selection. Butt took over the Test captaincy when Shahid Afridi resigned after a reign of one Test, then played match-winning innings as Pakistan defeated Australia and England: a real captain, so we all thought, about to give Pakistan the stability they needed.
Asif was a master of conventional swing last summer. He took 23 wickets in his six Tests here.
And Amir. A few years ago the former Test bowler Iqbal Qasim was at a cricket academy in Rawalpindi and served a cup of tea by a poor, scruffy youth. Qasim had come to see a prodigious new bowling talent, and asked where he was. It was the tea-boy, Amir, spotted playing in a dusty village. The rest is history; and so, alas, for the next five years, is he.
Which one of the three was selected? I am not going to say because it would not be in keeping with cricket’s tradition of fairness. All three have been banned for at least five years, pending their appeal. All three face prison sentences if found guilty at their trial that begins at Southwark Crown Court on May 20.
And Amir. A few years ago the former Test bowler Iqbal Qasim was at a cricket academy in Rawalpindi and served a cup of tea by a poor, scruffy youth. Qasim had come to see a prodigious new bowling talent, and asked where he was. It was the tea-boy, Amir, spotted playing in a dusty village. The rest is history; and so, alas, for the next five years, is he.
Which one of the three was selected? I am not going to say because it would not be in keeping with cricket’s tradition of fairness. All three have been banned for at least five years, pending their appeal. All three face prison sentences if found guilty at their trial that begins at Southwark Crown Court on May 20.
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