India’s Bumrah, Mandhana win top Wisden awards

MUMBAI (Agencies): India duo Jasprit Bumrah and Smriti Mandhana have been crowned the world’s leading cricketers in the latest edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. Bumrah won the honour in the men’s section after a stellar 2024 when he excelled across formats and was named player of the tournament as India won the Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies. “In an eventful year for Indian cricket, their success depended largely, if not entirely, on one factor: whether or not he had the ball,” the publication wrote about the 31-year-old, who is considered the best all-format bowler of his era. “Rarely has a cricketer stood out so overwhelmingly as he did in 2024.” Opener Mandhana won the women’s honour after a prolific 2024 that included five hundreds – four of them in one-day internationals. Mandhana also led Royal Challengers Bengaluru to their first Women’s Premier League title last year. West Indies batter Nicholas Pooran was named the ‘Leading T20 Player in the World’. England’s Gus Atkinson, Jamie Smith and Sophie Ecclestone were named among Wisden’s five ‘Cricketers of the Year’, alongside Liam Dawson and Dan Worrall. The Almanack, often called “the Bible of cricket”, has been published every year since 1864.