It’s time for the Guardian’s ninth annual men’s Test team of the year. The 11 selectors were: Ali Martin, Vic Marks, Tim de Lisle, Rob Smyth, Tanya Aldred, Jonathan Liew, Barney Ronay, Taha Hashim, Geoff Lemon, Adam Collins and Andy Bull. Everyone submitted their own XIs and the votes were tallied afterwards, so the blame for leaving out your favourite player can be spread around. Intriguingly, only one of them made last year’s side
1) Usman Khawaja
841 runs at 60.07
Picked by Australia for the first time since 2019, Khawaja peeled off a pair of centuries batting down the order in his comeback match against England in Sydney, a performance that left everyone wondering exactly where he had been for the last three years. A unanimous pick by the judges, he made another two hundreds when he was promoted to open in Pakistan, where he finished the series as the leading run-scorer on either side. By the time he had added a couple more fifties against West Indies back in Australia, he had passed 1,000 Test runs in a year for the first time.
2) Abdullah Shafique
799 runs @ 57.07
Whisked into the Pakistan team late in 2021 after just three first-class matches, Shafique went on to make a century against every team he played in Tests this year. He held Australia at bay when he made 136 in the fourth innings of a drawn Test in Rawalpindi in the spring, then took 114 off England at the same venue in the winter. In between, he made a monumental, and unbeaten, 160 to win the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle, the longest innings ever played to win a Test in the fourth innings.
3) Marnus Labuschagne
943 runs @ 58.93
It’s beginning to feel like you grow very old indeed waiting for Labuschagne’s purple patch to fizzle out. He wasn’t at his best in Pakistan but he made a century against Sri Lanka in Galle and followed it up by feasting on the West Indies attack back in Australia. He made 204, 104 not out and 163 in consecutive innings, a streak that took him to an all-time high in the ICC batting rankings. Along the way he passed 3,000 runs in Test cricket in 51 innings – only Don Bradman has ever been quicker to reach that figure.
4) Daryl Mitchell
641 runs @ 71.22
The lumberjack thwack of Mitchell’s bat was the soundtrack of early summer in England. Bounced out for 13 in his first innings of the series, he made at least fifty every time he came in to bat after that. The New Zealander reeled off 108 in the second innings at Lord’s, then made 190 at Trent Bridge, and 109 at Headingley. Mitchell has a simple method. He blocks the dangerous balls and belts everything else, but it was so effective that by the end of the series even Ben Stokes seemed flat out of ideas about how to get him out.
5) Jonny Bairstow
1061 runs @ 66.31
There are old men who have watched England every summer since they were little kids without ever seeing two men bat for them like Bairstow and Joe Root did this past summer. Root’s form tailed away, while Bairstow’s injury meant his year was ended prematurely. It began with his brilliant 113 in Sydney, went on with 140 against West Indies, built through the home series against New Zealand, when he made 136 and 162, then reached a peak when, goaded by Virat Kohli, he made a century in both innings against India at Edgbaston. He’s never been better. Not many ever have. A unanimous pick.
6) Ben Stokes (capt)
845 runs @ 35.2 / 26 wickets @ 31.19
This time last year Stokes was still feeling his way back into Test cricket after five months struggling with both his mental and physical health; 12 months later, he is the near-unanimous pick as captain of this side. Rash as his batting has been, he still made centuries against South Africa and West Indies, and an unbeaten 75 against New Zealand. His whole-hearted bowling has been as menacing as ever. But he is picked here for his leadership, which has been a revelation. Stokes hasn’t just turned this England team around, he has flipped 145 years of Test cricket on its head.
7) Rishabh Pant (WK)
578 runs @ 64.22 / 19 catches, 5 stumpings
Pant’s batting is so good to watch that even the opposition seemed to take a masochistic pleasure in being pummelled by him. “I absolutely loved watching it,” Ben Stokes said after Pant had clattered 146 against England at Edgbaston. It was his second century of the year, after his unbeaten 100 against South Africa at Cape Town, when the rest of the team managed only 70 runs between them. His flashy strokeplay belied the fact that he’s actually been India’s most reliable batsman in a year when their vaunted top order has struggled for runs.
8) Marco Jansen
35 wickets @ 17.02
Jansen took to Test cricket as if he was built for it, which, as a 6ft 7in left-arm quick, he pretty much is. He made his debut in the last Test of 2021, when he picked up five wickets against India, and carried on from there. There were 14 more in the second and third matches of that series, and another nine on a short tour of New Zealand. South Africa made the mistake of leaving him out at the Old Trafford Test, where England passed 200 for the only time in the series, then brought him back for the third at the Oval, where he took his first five-wicket haul.
9) Pat Cummins
35 wickets @ 21.02
Among all the other bits of received wisdom about Test cricket that have been tossed into the bin this year, Cummins junked the one about how it is batsmen who necessarily make the best captains. Australia have lost only once since he took over, on a spinning pitch in Galle. Cummins’ own bowling was the key to their victory in Pakistan, where he turned in one of the all-time performances by taking eight wickets on a featherbed in a victory in Lahore. He also annoyed all the right people by speaking out about cricket’s part in the climate crisis.
10) Nathan Lyon
43 wickets @ 29.18
Jack Leach took more wickets, but they were a deal more expensive. Keshav Maharaj’s were cheaper, but most of his came in one home series against Bangladesh. Prabath Jayasuriya was more dangerous, but he played only three Tests and they were all at Galle. Neither Ravindra Jadeja or Ravi Ashwin did a whole heap of bowling. The Australian, meanwhile, was his reliable old self. Lyon picked up 12 on tour in Pakistan, 11 in Sri Lanka, ran through West Indies, and by the end of the year he had become the first orthodox finger-spinner ever to take 450 Test wickets.
11) James Anderson
36 wickets @ 19.8
Did England really drop Anderson in the spring? Or was that just a fever dream? He and Stuart Broad were back in the ranks as soon as Ben Stokes became captain and both were soon bowling as well as ever. Anderson, spurred on by Stokes, has taken wickets in every innings since and his 40th year has turned out to be his best since 2017. Watching him bend his back to whistle down bouncers while England were pressing on for victory in Pakistan, it seemed stranger than ever that anyone ever questioned whether the team would be better off without him.
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