Concluding our five-part series, The Cricketer reveals our top ten players of the past ten years...
The cornerstone of a golden South Africa pace attack over the past 16 years, Dale Steyn finally called time on his Test career in August in order to prolong his career in the white-ball game. The 36-year-old travelled to this summer's World Cup but took no part after picking up a shoulder injury, and his exit sees him as the leading Protea bowler in eighth place on the all-time Test wicket charts.Previously, he had started the decade as he finished the previous one: as the most potent fast bowler in the Test game, taking 267 wickets in since the start of 2010 at an average of 22.29.
Among players with at least 50 red-ball wickets, only young pretenders Kagiso Rabada and Jasprit Bumrah have lower strike rate for the decade than Steyn's incisive 43.9, and efforts 2010 (60 wickets at 21.41) and 2013 (51 wicket at 17.66) rank amongst the finest years in Test history. Steyn has also managed 90 ODI outings in the 2010s, claiming 145 wickets at 24.80 – placing him third among South Africans, behind only Imran Tahir and new-ball partner Morne Morkel – and conceding just 4.72 runs per over in the process.
David Warner is undoubtedly the decade's archetypal batsman, catapulting himself into international T20 stardom with Australia before he had even played a first-class game but nevertheless going on to forge a career out of cross-format domination through belligerent strokeplay and a phenomenal record, particularly on home soil.
After his record-breaking 335 not out against Pakistan in Adelaide last month, he now boasts more Test runs than Don Bradman and a home average of 65.36 with 17 centuries, and his seamless return to international cricket at this year's World Cup (647 runs at 71.88, only one run short of Rohit Sharma) demonstrated what the sport had been missing.
Certainly, his pugnacious character has at times got the better of him, as most notoriously demonstrated with a punch to Joe Root in the Birmingham Walkabout and the Newlands ball-tampering scandal of 2018, however these incidents cannot take away from his on-pitch productivity. In total, Warner now has 41 international hundreds since the turn of the decade – only two batsmen have more, and Warner’s cross-format strike rate of 85.94 comfortably outshines them both.
After a glittering 15-year international career, Kumar Sangakkara opted to call time on his time in Sri Lankan colours shortly after the mid-way point of the decade, however the left-hander was nevertheless one of the most successful batsman to grace the last 10 years. In 224 matches since the start of 2010, Sangakkara scored more than 12,000 international runs – a figure bettered by only eight men, who each played at least three more years of the decade – and he appeared to be only getting stronger and more elegant with age.
Sangakkara’s record across the 2011 and 2015 World Cups is particularly formidable, with a batting average of 100.60 and in the latter tournament becoming the first player in the history of the ODI game to register hundreds in four consecutive innings, with Bangladesh, England, Australia and Scotland the clueless opponents. Though a trophy in the format continued to elude him – repeating their efforts from the West Indies in 2007, he captained the side as far as the 2011 final in Mumbai, and four years later they were bowled out for 133 by South Africa at the quarter-final stage – he was named player of the match in the final of the 2014 World Twenty20, leading a six-wicket win with an unbeaten 52.
Facing the red ball, 17 of Sangakkara’s 38 career Test hundreds came from just the 46 matches he played this decade. That haul included a career-best 319 against Bangladesh in 2014 and four further doubles scored in Galle, Colombo, Abu Dhabi and Wellington. His average topped 60 in home, away and even neutral conditions, with two 1,000-run years and nominations to the ICC’s Test team of the year in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014. While he has since gone on to play three seasons at Surrey and transition successfully to a media career, the game is not the same without him.
AB de Villiers recreates The Cricketer's logo on his way to the fastest century in international history
There is a simple reason that the biggest story around South Africa's dismal 2019 World Cup campaign was whether AB de Villiers had put himself forward for the squad or not: when on song, there is simply no batsman in the world capable of doing what he does. The 2010s saw him claim 12,820 runs for the Proteas in 250 appearances, including 34 centuries and 67 half-centuries, but the raw numbers barely scratch the surface of de Villiers' game-altering talents.
In the early portion of the decade, he flourished under the Test captaincy of Graeme Smith, averaging 65.32 playing with South Africa's newly-appointed director of cricket. Ten centuries in that period covered it all, from a seven-hour Abu Dhabi vigil in 2010 that saw him compile a career-best 278 not out, to a 75-ball effort against India in Centurion just one month later that obliterated the previous national record for the fastest Test ton by 20 deliveries.
But if it's fast centuries one is looking for, look no further than Johannesburg in 2015. Captain de Villiers wanted David Miller to have a bat instead after centuries from Hashim Amla and Rilee Rossouw had South Africa at 247 for 1 with 69 balls remaining, but once talked round by coach Russell Domingo he flicked and ramped and slammed a then-record 16 sixes on his way to 149 from 44 balls – the first hundred coming in just 31, making it the second-fastest in the history of professional cricket, and the pinnacle of an ODI decade that included 20 other hundreds and a world-leading average of 64.20.
In 2016, Kane Williamson assumed the New Zealand captaincy at a critical point for the country. After forming the core of the side for several years, both Daniel Vettori and Brendon McCullum had called time on their Blackcaps days to specialise (as players and, later, coaches) on the domestic short-form circuit, but Williamson stepped up to the challenge and has registered 5,337 runs in the 107 matches since. The side won 13 straight games across formats in 2017-18 before coach Mike Hesson vacated his seat after six years in charge, and the country now sits assertively in second place on the ICC's Test leaderboard.
Long-hailed as one of the 'Big Four', Williamson got his first international opportunity at senior level in 2010 and passed 14,000 runs for the decade in his most recent knock against Australia in Perth. He is one of just 10 men to reach three figures on 30 or more occasions in the 2010s, and in Test whites he has averaged 60 or more in four of the past six calendar years, with hundreds against every opponent and also in every country apart from South Africa.
Williamson has also excelled in his three World Cups, anchoring the Blackcaps' march to heartbreaking defeat in this year's final with vital patience to reach hundreds in nail-biting clashes with South Africa and the West Indies. As much for his sportsmanship and captaincy as his run-scoring, he was named the player of the tournament to the surprise of nobody but himself.
Hashim Amla's storied Proteas career deserved a better ending. After debuting at Test level in 2004, it took until the 2010s before he truly hit his stride, but once he was there he was one of the most prolific batsmen of his generation. In 2012, Amla became the first (and, thus far, only) South African to register a Test triple-century, grinding his way there at The Oval over a mammoth 790 minutes in the middle to open the tour that tore the England team apart. Two years prior, he had achieved the remarkable feat of 1,000 runs on both Test (1,249 at 78.06) and ODI (1,058 at 75.57) duty, earning the first of four consecutive selections to the ICC's Test team of the year.
In total, Amla's decade saw him finish as one of just two players to reach 15,000 international runs and, and a 2019 World Cup campaign more representative of his career as a whole could have very easily seen him add to his collection of 47 centuries. The opener had previously obliterated long-standing records in the 50-over format – fastest to 2,000 runs by five matches, to 5,000 by 13, to 7,000 by 11, and several in between – and was more than adept in the shorter formats, claiming two hundreds in the 2017 IPL in addition to 25 other half-centuries in T20 outings.
It is more than a little absurd to reflect and realise that one of the greatest batsmen of the decade debuted at No.8 in each format in 2010, and more than three years went by before he first celebrated three figures. If anything, it just makes Steve Smith's career look even more astonishing – count from March 2013, when he was first awarded an extended run in the Baggy Green as a dedicated batsman, and Smith has 26 hundreds in 66 matches, averaging 66.14 and converting more than half of his scores of 50-plus into centuries. As captain, the average rises again to over 70; since coming back from his year-long suspension for his part in the Newlands ball-tampering saga, try a whisker under 80.
Smith's productivity could never be accused of coming from conventional methods, with tennis shots to short-pitched balls and mechanical twitches seeming to become ever more prevalent as his career ticks on. And yet, the stranger it looks the more it seems to do the trick – across the last home-away Ashes cycle, he has six centuries in 14 innings, averaging 121.75 and invading the nightmares of England fans the world over. They are far from his only victims, though – his Test average against India is currently at 84.05, and his 26 hundreds to date have come split evenly between home and away.
There is also the little matter of white-ball cricket, and Smith is effusive towards scorers there too. He averages 52.72 at first drop in ODIs, with seven centuries in 56 outings and with the three largest all scored on home turf since lifting the 2015 World Cup title, and his two most recent IPL campaigns have seen him lead Rising Pune Supergiant and Rajasthan Royals respectively.
More than 3,000 players have received international caps since the turn of the decade, but not one has been a more formidable all-round threat than Ellyse Perry. The Australian is an all-rounder in the most overwhelming of senses, leading all women with both bat and ball in the decade's Tests (573 runs at 114.60, 26 wickets at 16.73) and also placing inside the top 10 for each discipline in ODIs as well.
Over a far larger sample size, the 50-over game has been her most dominant format – in 81 matches, her decade average of 66.12 with the bat is 11.39 higher than the second-best of Mithali Raj, increasing to 73.24 since being allowed a regular spot up the order under the captaincy of (third-placed) Meg Lanning since 2014; among seamers, only South Africa's Shabnim Ismail and Marizanne Kapp have more than her 116 wickets, and when defending totals she has struck every 26.5 balls while conceding fewer than four runs per over.
Since first climbing to the top of the ICC's all-rounder rankings in ODI and T20 cricket in 2016, Perry has been a near-constant presence in the No.1 spot. As part of a dominant Australian national side, she has claimed four of the decade's five World Twenty20 crowns alongside the ODI World Cup title in 2013, and her emergence as a dominant T20 opener in the past two WBBL tournaments (1,247 runs at 89.07) has her well poised to push the country towards further success in the new decade.
James Anderson is the only bowler to collect 400 Test scalps in the decade
As of England's victory over India at The Oval in 2018, there is no pace bowler in the history of Test cricket who has been as successful as James Anderson. The past 10 years have seen him add more wickets in the format than any other bowler – on the eve of the Boxing Day Test in Centurion, he sits 29 wickets clear of Stuart Broad, the only man who could theoretically join him with 400 scalps in the decade – and he has accumulated these with an unerring consistency. The ICC's player rankings are updated at the conclusion of every Test match, and in the past 10 years he has sat outside the top 10 for bowlers on just two of 105 occasions.
Home Tests have long been Anderson's bread and butter, with 57 of them in the 2010s adding 264 victims to his collection at just 21.19 runs each, though he has continued to be the centre of England's attack in all conditions. He has collected 20 five-fors, including six such hauls since Joe Root took over the captaincy in 2017 and as far afield as Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka, and eight of the nine years leading up to 2019 saw him pass 40 Test scalps.
A persistent calf injury prematurely ended his eighth Ashes series – Anderson had collected 87 wickets in 23 such matches before limping off at Edgbaston, including a standout 24 at 26.04 during the victorious tour of 2010-11 – and, even at 37, England's Test side will be all the stronger for his return should he make the XI to play South Africa later this week.
India's captain was a unanimous selection for player of the decade among The Cricketer's team. Virat Kohli has scored more international runs than any other player in the decade: 20,960 of them, to be precise, with the man in second (Hashim Amla) well over 5,000 behind. When Sachin Tendulkar retired in 2013 on a historic haul of 100 international hundreds, many suspected he would never be matched, yet Kohli is now just one off Ricky Ponting in second place (70 centuries, 69 of which have come since 2010) and still has 338 innings in hand on Tendulkar's career tally.
Virat Kohli is crowned The Cricketer's Best Cricketer of the Decade
As the pressure increases, so too do his returns. In 166 matches as captain, Kohli's average across formats now stands at 66.88, with a Test best of 254 not out having been recently struck against South Africa in Pune in October. He has Test hundreds on every continent, and he has Test double-hundreds against everyone he has played but Australia – and even then, his seven centuries against them are not to be sniffed at.
And yet, the Test feats are not even the most overwhelming facet of his game. Since the turn of the decade, Kohli has crossed 50 in 94 of his 220 ODI knocks, and raised three figures in 42 of them. Only Tendulkar (49 centuries in almost twice as many innings) stands anywhere close, and again there is not a territory he has played in where he hasn't registered at least one century. With seven calendar years of 1,000 or more runs in the format this decade, it is frankly to be expected that he will surpass Tendulkar's record and claim a 50th ODI ton in the next 12 to 18 months. For now, we can just savour the journey.
Disagree with our picks? Name your best cricketers of the decade in the comments section below.
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