Lord's Cricket Ground's Top 20 Players of 2016

The Lord’s Cricket Ground officially announced it’s list of top 20 players of 2016. The official Youtube handle of the Lord’s posted a minute long video on each of the players that reflected back at their performances in the calendar year. Indian Test skipper Virat Kohli bagged the top honors. Kohli has had a sensational run in 2016 across all the formats of the game. He capped off the perfect season with the Player of the Series award in the recently concluded India v England Test series.

English wicketkeeper-batsman Jonny Bairstow was the second highest run-getter for England in 2016 and hence he found himself on the list too. The ICC Cricketer of the Year, Ravichandran Ashwin, was the next man. Ashwin’s heroics saw him finish as the number one ranked Test bowler in this year. Sri Lanka’s spin wizard Rangana Herath continued his merry run in the home series against Australia that helped Sri Lanka whitewash the Aussies in Tests.

Kusal Mendis was the only other Sri Lankan in the team. Among the other key mentions from the England cricket team were Chris Woakes, Joe Root, and Ben Stokes. Root finished as the leading run-getter in Test cricket in 2016. Other Indians to feature in the list were Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara. Three players from Australia made it to the top 20 in the list. Pace bowler Mitchell Starc topped among the Australians. Skipper Steve Smith, the number one ranked Test batsman, followed him with David Warner.

Pakistan Test skipper Misbah-ul-Haq and leggie Yasir Shah were the two names from Pakistan making it to the elite list. There was just one mention each from the Bangladeshi team and the West Indies. Allrounder Shakib Al Hasan was placed 20th and Marlon Samuels was at 16. 3 South Africans made it to the Lord’s top 20 players of 2016; they were Kagiso Rabada, Quinton de Kock and Imran Tahir.

Surprisingly, no player from New Zealand team made it to the top 20. Kane Williamson remains to be the surprise exclusion!

Here is the complete list of Lord’s Cricket Ground’s Top 20 Players of 2016:

Virat Kohli, Jonny Bairstow, Ravichandran Ashwin, Rangana Herath, Chris Woakes, Kagiso Rabada, Joe Root, Quinton de Kock, Mitchell Starc, Ben Stokes, Misbah-ul-Haq, David Warner, Ajinkya Rahane, Steve Smith, Yasir Shah, Marlon Samuels, Kusal Mendis, Cheteshwar Pujara, Imran Tahir, Shakib Al Hasan.