The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced the winner of the prestigious ICC Men’s Test Cricketer of the Year 2024 award, and unsurprisingly, it was Jasprit Bumrah.
The Indian bowling icon took 71 wickets in just 13 Test matches in 2024, taking wickets in both home and away conditions. He returned from injury in late 2023 and has since continued taking wickets at a stupendous rate. He was so far ahead of the others that the second-best wicket-taker in 2024, Gus Atkinson, took 52 wickets in 11 games.
In the 357 overs he bowled in the format, his economy was just 2.96, and he averaged a ridiculous 14.02 with a strike rate of just 30.1. In fact, out of the 17 bowlers who have picked more than 70 wickets in a Test calendar, no one has done it at a better bowling average than Bumrah.
Bumrah’s year began with eight wickets in a Test in Cape Town. Then he spearheaded India’s attack against England at home and picked 19 wickets in the series that India won 4-1. Later in the year, he was like a one man army in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy where he picked 32 wickets in five Test matches and was also the Player of the Series.
In the process, the 31-year-old became the only bowler in Test history with a minimum of 200 dismissals to have an average of less than 20 (19.4).
He was also included in ICC’s Test Team of the Year 2024.