Suryakumar Yadav named Wisden’s leading T20I cricketer; Harmanpreet Kaur bags top honour

Suryakumar Yadav and Harmanpreet Kaur bagged the Wisden Almanack’s leading cricketer in the World awards.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/Emmanual Yogini

The Indian duo of Suryakumar Yadav and Harmanpreet Kaur has added another feather to their outstanding crown after bagging the Wisden Almanack’s leading cricketer in the World awards.

Suryakumar won the honour of Wisden Almanack’s leading T20I cricketer while Harmanpreet Kaur became the first Indian woman to win the Cricketer of the Year award.

The year 2022 in T20Is was almost like a net session for Suryakumar. Wherever he went, he amassed runs for fun: a total of 1164 of them at a stunning strike rate of 187.43. This included 68 sixes, something no T20I batter has ever done in a calendar year.

His two centuries and nine half-tons — including three in the 2022 T20 World Cup alone — helped India win 28 of their 40 games last year. His standout knock in 2022 of the 55-ball 117 at Nottingham, his maiden T20 hundred.

As for Harman, she is one of the five Cricketers of the Year announced in the 2023 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. A well-deserved honour for the champion of Indian women’s cricket in 2022, having led the Women in Blue to a 3-0 ODI series win on English soil, the first since 1999, and a Silver medal finish at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

She piled on 754 ODI runs, including an unbeaten 143 in the England ODIs and 524 T20I runs — spoke for itself as she continues to make history and rewrite it with her talent and commitment to the sport.