I t’s time for the Ballon d’Or because it’s always time for the Ballon d’Or. Once the golden ball is presented at the London Palladium this month to Harry Kane/Lamine Yamal/Lionel Messi (let us know in the comments!), the debate will quickly switch to next year’s contenders, continuing football’s unhealthy relationship with an individual trophy. “How World Cup final could be pivotal in Ballon d’Or race”, read a BBC headline in July, though the real jump-the-shark moment was when Real Madrid boycotted the ceremony in 2024 because Vinícius Júnior had to settle for silver. Perversely, quite the team move.
Cricket celebrates the individual with greater range. The sport lauds hundreds, five-wicket hauls and averages, making for games within games, prompting forensic analysis of when Joe Root will overtake Sachin Tendulkar as the leading run-scorer in Test history. The International Cricket Council has its rankings for the best batters, bowlers and all-rounders in the world, across formats for men and women. My Instagram feed has recently been hijacked by: 1) AI bunnies breakdancing; 2) adverts for hair loss pills; and 3) Stuart Broad and Jos Buttler ranking the best Test batters of the century.
But there’s also something missing here, something by which the sport is less consumed – the question football asks itself constantly. Who is the best player in the world? Yes, there’ll be talk of the best batter, bowler or all-rounder, but what about ignoring the subcategories? For better or worse, there doesn’t seem to be a desperate push to celebrate the ultimate crown.
The ICC does have its own annual awards, launched in 2004, with the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy given to the men’s cricketer of the year and the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy for the women’s equivalent. But the last declared winners were Jasprit Bumrah and Melie Kerr for their international performances in 2024. Even the most ardent followers of the game will have failed to notice the absence of any awards for 2025.
An ICC spokesperson said: “The ICC has presented its annual awards digitally for a number of years, but we deliberately held back the 2025 edition to rethink what that platform can, and should, look like.
“As a result of that rethink, we are now in the process of developing a new approach to the ICC awards, which will return in 2027 and treat 2025-26 as a single season, as we look to create a broader, more meaningful way for cricket to celebrate its leading players, teams and achievements.”
The spokesperson said that as the ICC tries to “refine” its plan for the awards, “there is a real opportunity for the awards to become a significant global occasion for cricket that generates genuine excitement on the calendar”. An acknowledgment, then, that the old model didn’t make much of a splash.
Then there are the annual titles bestowed by the Wisden almanack, including the five Cricketers of the Year, an honour with its own terms and conditions. Chosen by the editor, the picks are based on performances in the previous English summer and it can be won only once.
To go for something more global and resembling the Ballon d’Or, though, there is the Leading Cricketer in the World. The men’s version was introduced in the 2004 almanack, and the women’s award came 11 years later. Mitchell Starc, lethal in the Ashes, and Deepti Sharma, central to India’s World Cup win , are the current holders. And the fun goes back, with the almanack having declared retrospective winners for the 20th century, too. Don Bradman, in case you’re wondering, had his own Messi-like run, victorious on 10 occasions from 1930 to 1948.
But, according to Lawrence Booth, the almanack’s editor, being one of the five is still “the plum prize”, having been around since 1889. “That’s the prize that most people talk about,” Booth says. “That has a resonance in a way that the Leading Cricketer doesn’t quite yet.
“The Leading Cricketer in the World is our chance to point out that we’re not just Anglocentric and that we take into account all kinds of cricket throughout the year and all nationalities. It’s similar to the ICC awards – you could predict in a way who’s going to win those awards because it’s generally the leading run-scorer or wicket-taker, whereas the five is a bit more quirky. The five is the one that most people ask about.”
There’s no glitzy trophy on offer for the leading cricketers, nor a real crowning image on stage like the Ballon d’Or has every year, backed by the institutional might of Uefa. Then again, is this really a problem for cricket? While the ICC ponders how to jazz up its own awards, there’s plenty of issues that should be higher on the priority list for the governing body.
A prestigious award celebrating the best of the best is certainly worth having and if an updated version gains some heft it should make for a good story during a bland white-ball series. Greater exposure is always welcome and it’s undoubtedly fun to speculate: survey the current international landscape and you’ll probably find Harry Brook, Beth Mooney, Shai Hope and Shree Charani among the contenders for 2026’s major gongs.
But it’s also worth appreciating that the game, as it stands, isn’t consumed by a solo prize. While Rio Ferdinand cried: “Ballon d’Or, Ballon d’Or, Ballon d’Or!” as Vinícius sealed Real Madrid’s Champions League triumph two years ago , we don’t need Michael Atherton screaming: “Wisden, Wisden, Wisden!” as Brook reaches three figures in a World Cup final. Football can keep that to itself.
