Mitchell, Blundell named in Wisden's 5 Cricketers of the Year

Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell have been named as two of the five selections for this year's Wisden Cricketers of the Year awards.

Mitchell and Blundell, along with England's Ben Foakes and Matthew Potts and India women's captain Harmanpreet Kaur, are the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year.

The award, distributed by the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack and decided on each year by its editor, is the oldest individual award in cricket and dates back to 1889 with selection based primarily, but not exclusively, on the influence the player had on the previous English season.

Another criteria of the award is that no-one can win it more than once.

Blundell was named after scoring 383 runs across New Zealand's three Test matches in England last summer, including a century at Trent Bridge.

He also scored 96 in the second innings of the previous Test at Lord's as well as an unbeaten 88 in the final match in Leeds.

Coincidentally, Blundell's efforts in that series were only second to Mitchell, who scored 538 runs at an average of 107.

Mitchell became the 15th Black Cap to score a Test century at Lord's while putting on a record 236-run partnership with Blundell, before going on to score 190 in Nottingham.

A third century in Leeds made Mitchell the fifth New Zealand player to score hundreds in three successive Tests; a milestone made more special by the fact he and Australian legend Don Bradman are the only ones to score centuries in each of their first three Tests of a series in England as visiting batters.

England great Graham Gooch is the only player to have scored more runs in a three-match Test series in England [752], thanks in part to his historic first innings 333-run knock at Lord's against India in 1990.

In other accolades issued by Wisden, Ben Stokes was named leading cricketer of the world for a third time in four years while Australia's Beth Mooney received the women's award.

Stokes was acknowledged for the transformation of England's Test side in the last year as well as his starring role in their T20 World Cup final win over Pakistan in November.

Mooney was named after playing a leading role in Australia's wins at the 50-over and T20 World Cups as well as gold at the Commonwealth Games.

Batter Jonny Bairstow earned the new Wisden Trophy for outstanding individual Test performance of the year with his twin hundreds in England's record-breaking win over India at Edgbaston in July.

Meanwhile, India batter Suryakumar Yadav was named as the leading Twenty20 cricketer in the world.