Posted by Our annual Lord Megachief of Gold award is the highest honour in cricket. The title is recognition of performance over the previous calendar year. Here are all the previous winners.
Last year, the Lord Megachief of Gold award was split with both Brendon McCullum and Angelo Mathews honoured. This year, one man is out there on his own.
All aboard the Kane train
Destination: who knows? But the journey will take a while and it’ll feature many, many runs.
A number of players have made 200-300 Test runs more than Kane Williamson in 2015. All of them have played at least 50 per cent more matches. He averaged 90.15 for the year.
New Zealand only get short tours – batsmen don’t get long to acclimatise – but yet in every series he played, he made a hundred. Against England, at Lord’s, he made 132. Against Australia he made 140 at Brisbane and 166 at Perth. The year was also bookended by contrasting hundreds at home against Sri Lanka.
In Wellington, back in January, he made light of a 135-run first innings deficit and made 242 not out in the second innings. He trumped Kumar Sangakkara’s 203 and New Zealand won. It would have been a passing-of-the-baton moment if cricket had a baton to signify its finest batsman – which it doesn’t. It has a mace for best Test team though. Against that backdrop it doesn’t seem all that ludicrous to introduce a Baton of Blinding Batsmanship.
More recently, Williamson made a hundred in a fourth innings run-chase. You don’t get many of those. He alone contributed what you could realistically have expected the entire team to muster in those circumstances. New Zealand won.
How?
In that mammoth double hundred in Wellington, Williamson made just 72 in boundaries. That’s not the way big innings are built in this day and age. When there’s a high score in New Zealand, it’s often at a small ground. There was no inflation here though. He faced 438 balls and just 18 of them went to the fence.
In contrast, when he made 140 in Brisbane, 96 runs came in boundaries. It’s almost like he was a different batsman, which in many ways sums up his brilliance.
In summary
Oh, by the way, Williamson was also the second-highest scorer in one-day internationals and during the World Cup, he demonstrated how to hit a six.
We hereby move that henceforth, whenever Williamson comes in to bat, all commentators must intone the words: “New Zealand are about to administer the Kane.”
Yeah, OK. Well batted.
A worrying number of previous LMoGs have taken their leave from Test cricket this year. McCullum, Bell (probably), Chanderpaul (surely), Clarke, Dhoni.
Corporal Williamson? Don;t like the sound of it.
Lord Megachief of Gold Kane Williamson sounds much better.
Having said that, Lord Megachief of Gold is such a long and unwieldy title. When you first started this site, KC, I think you could have called the annual honour “King Cricket” rather than taking that rather vainglorious title for yourself. What says you?
While KC composes himself (perhaps having bitten his own arm in anger and frustration before either typing a response or deciding not to dignify my appeal with a reply), I’ll quickly wish one and all a very happy new year and best wishes for 2016.
Instead of a Baton of Blinding Batsmanship, from this point on they should give the best batsman in the world a Gold Kane.
Having progressed through all of your suggested reactions Ged, I’ll simply provide this link for those who don’t know why.
http://www.alloutcricket.com/cricket/blogs/kings-of-cricket-brian-lara
That byline picture is a bit odd. Do you really look like that?
is there a post which explains the difference between Lord Megachief of Gold & GrandLord Megachief of Gold?
is the GLMoG awarded to a winner who has previously been awarded LMoG?
or are they the same?
OK I got it
http://www.kingcricket.co.uk/lord-megachief-of-gold-2008/2009/01/01/#more-760
I rather liked the format of the 2008 post where you have to scroll down to the end of the post, not only to find who is the winner but as a bonus he has also been awarded a bigger bad-ass sounding award
I never knew that this great site was owned and operated by TV comedy panel shows’ own John Richardson. How does he find the time?
Back in the day, before he was really famous, people would sometimes comment that we had much in common with Jon Richardson. Not sure we’ve ever been accused of looking like him before though.
It’s an odd picture, that one.
There couldn’t really be another choice this year, could there.
…Could there? Root played reasonably well throughout and became The Context, Broad found consistency. My choices probably showing a certain bias, but apart from those two and Kane I really am struggling.
R Ashwin was the only other person I’d have considered. 62 wickets in nine matches at an average of 17.20. Seven five-wicket hauls (next best: three). Of course, all but one of those matches was in the subcontinent, mostly on raging turners, but still, that’s an awful lot of wickets for not an awful lot of runs.
Voges and Smith also scored a lot of runs at excellent averages, but Australia play on such roads these days that it’s easy to discount their runs (especially Voges’, which tended to come against tired, toothless attacks in addition to said roads).
Williamson would have been my choice. He had a better year than McCullum’s 2014, and that was a year for the history books.
I considered Smith and Ashwin, Dan, but discounted them for the reasons you said effectively (overly helpful conditions and, in Smith’s case, many of the runs coming against modern-day WI).
One other man is Wahab Riaz, actually, for being a threat from the World Cup right through to the England series. But his numbers don’t stand up to scrutiny really, and while numbers shouldn’t be everything, they are something.
What’s your first thought about Mohammed Amir being picked for Pakistan?
I find it hard to believe that the best way to stop corruption in cricket is to say, worst case scenario, you can always have another go in a few years.
My first reaction was “very Pakistan”.
Some of his team mates were planning a boycott but as it transpired, they had no balls to see it through.
I have images of Azhar Ali and Mohammed Hafeez waving sticks of rhubarb at Amir and chuntering about uncovered pitches.
On consideration, though I normally wish young talent well, I hope he gets thwonked on his comeback so that his future selection becomes a non-issue. Is that cruel of me?
My second favourite comment on the Cricinfo thread about Pakistan’s team selection is “Here is a simple parallel from life: if an employee is found guilty of criminally defrauding his company, what chance is there of him being employed in the same company after he has served his sentence? Of course, Amir needs cricket, but can cricket not do without him?” Which really seems to get to the heart of the matter.
My favourite comment on that thread is “why not Sharjeel khan in T20 he has performed even recently against England Loins”.
What a performance that must have been.
But was it broadcast on Sky? And was it before or after the watershed?
Amir was a teenager when he committed his offense and he immediately admitted to it and served his suspension. He deserves a second chance. Not a third, though.
Butt and Asif I’d feel differently about. Doesn’t seem like anyone’s too eager to bring them back, though, so that point is likely moot.