Mitchell Starc and Deepti Sharma have collected Wisden’s headline awards for 2025, their names revealed a day before the 163rd Almanack lands in bookshops. Starc is the Leading Men’s Cricketer in the World; Sharma takes the women’s equivalent after steering India to a maiden 50-over World Cup title.
Starc, now 36, ended last year with 55 Test wickets at 17.32, a spell that included 6 for 9 against West Indies and – more memorably for English readers – 31 wickets in the first four Ashes Tests. Sharma, 28, produced 215 runs at 30.71 and 22 wickets at 20.40 during the World Cup, then iced the final in Navi Mumbai with a run-a-ball 58 and 5 for 39.
The Almanack’s oldest accolade, the Five Cricketers of the Year, leans towards those who shaped the previous English summer. Four of the five spots have gone to India’s tourists: Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, Rishabh Pant and Mohammed Siraj. Former England opener Haseeb Hameed is the lone home player, rewarded for 1258 Championship runs at 66 and the small matter of two double-tons while captaining Nottinghamshire to the title.
Gill’s work at Edgbaston – 430 runs in the second Test alone – also earns him the Wisden Trophy for the year’s outstanding single performance. Fellow left-hander Abhishek Sharma, who rattled up 1000 T20 runs at better than two a ball, is named Leading T20 Cricketer.
Lawrence Booth, editing his 13th Almanack, turns a colder eye on England’s 4-1 Ashes defeat. He reminds readers of the pre-series scuffle involving vice-captain Harry Brook in a New Zealand nightclub and suggests the episode foreshadowed a campaign that quickly lost its bearings. “In the game’s long history, it is hard to think of a privilege so carelessly squandered, a chance so blithely spurned,” Booth writes. “England arrived for the Ashes hell-bent on making history, and ended up being laughed out of town.”
Plenty inside English cricket still back Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum to revive the Test side. Booth, however, warns that the partnership has become “predictable… dogmatic… and deaf to re-calibration”, a charge that may sting given the early hype around Bazball.
The new awards in brief
• Leading Men’s Cricketer: Mitchell Starc
• Leading Women’s Cricketer: Deepti Sharma
• Leading T20 Cricketer: Abhishek Sharma
• Wisden Trophy: Shubman Gill
• Five Cricketers of the Year: Gill, Jadeja, Pant, Siraj, Haseeb Hameed
Starc, speaking last month at an Australian training camp, kept things low-key. “Awards are nice, but you still want to run in hard for the skipper,” he said, reflecting a theme he has held since debut. Sharma was similarly down-to-earth after India’s triumph: “We played for each other, and that made the difference.” Neither quote is new, yet both fit the pair’s understated public style.
Why the selections matter
Wisden’s global titles tend to crown a body of work, not merely a fortnight of form. Starc’s bounce-back year, after whispers he might be past it, underlines the point. Sharma’s nod feels equally significant: Indian women’s cricket now has a flagship trophy and an individual beacon, the two strengthening each other.
For England, the honours list offers mixed lessons. Hameed’s renaissance, achieved far from the spotlight, shows domestic runs still count. The scant representation elsewhere, though, reflects a side picking through the debris of a one-sided Ashes.
The Almanack goes on sale on Wednesday. As ever, the book will provoke pub-and-podcast debate – but, as Booth’s blunt notes suggest, the hardest truths are already in print.
