There's a huge year of cricket ahead with The Ashes and the Cricket World Cup on the horizon, but who are the greatest players on the planet right now?
Playing across multiple formats and with an ultra-demanding schedule, it's not straight forward trying to rank the best cricket players in the world. The ICC rankings only tell us so much.
Compiling this list meant balancing T20 specialists against proven Test greats. It meant weighing great form with track record.
Do all-rounders have a natural advantage in this debate? How are multi-format stars rewarded against red-ball masters or short-form experts? There is a lot to consider when putting together a top 10 list of this nature.
5. Joe Root
Joe Root’s averages are not as gaudy as some of the other elite batters around the world, but much of that can be attributed to playing so much of his cricket on challenging English pitches.
Root is one of the finest players of his generation, and arguably England’s greatest ever batter.
Not being part of England’s white-ball teams could be used against Root here, though that is more about the quality of England’s batting options than his talents in the shorter formats.
4. Jasprit Bumrah
When fit, Jasprit Bumrah is the most complete fast bowler in world cricket. Trotting in off a short run, a unique, jerky action makes it difficult for batters to pick him up. Bumrah torments batters in an array of ways.
He can swing and seam the red ball, creating awkward angles. With the white ball in hand, he has a hostile bouncer which complements his variations and ability to perform a pinpoint yorker.
Bumrah is unorthodox, but his diverse skillset makes him the archetypal modern pace bowler.
3. Shakib Al Hasan
Shakib Al Hasan has been one of cricket’s most underrated players throughout his career. To use a traditional, and somewhat simplistic, measure of an all-rounder, Shakib’s batting average is higher than his bowling average in Tests, ODIs and T20s. According to the ICC rankings, he is also the number one all-rounder in T20Is and ODIs, while placing third in Tests.
Though controversy has been a feature of Shakib’s career, he is a player who will only be truly appreciated once he retires. He remains Bangladesh’s standout performer.
2. Rashid Khan
While not spinning the ball significantly, Rashid Khan’s leggies have become one of the most effective weapons in white-ball cricket. Khan’s red-ball career has also set off at an impressive pace with Afghanistan recently earning Test status.
Accurate and with a hard-to-pick googly, Khan has flourished across numerous short-form leagues and has a stellar record for Afghanistan in over 150 white-ball matches. When given the opportunity, he also swings hard with the willow in hand, and has often provided helpful runs for his team.
1. Ben Stokes
Who else? Ben Stokes isn’t the best batsman in the world, nor is he the best bowler. In fact, he isn’t even statistically the best all-rounder. Stokes, though, is the man you want with bat or ball in hand when the pressure is greatest. The headlines are two World Cup triumphs and the barely believable heroics at Headingley in 2019, but beyond those historic occasions, Stokes has so regularly turned matches for his team.
In 2022, the Christchurch-born all-rounder took over the Test captaincy and transformed England from one of the world’s worst teams to an unstoppable force, reinventing the way the world thinks about the five-day game in the process.
Stokes’s statistics are not particularly impressive, and he has recently retired from ODI cricket. He has been a match-winner in every format throughout his career, however, and has proven to be a transformative captain.
If you were picking an XI to win a one-off match in any format, Stokes would be in the team. Few cricketers can make that claim.
Not only the best cricketer in the world; he is a giant of the sport.
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