Marnus Labuschagne is leading the way to field the Wisden Leading Cricketer at the World Awards for 2021 after Ben Stokes and Virat Kohli dominated for five years.

England’s Dynamo Stokes achieved success in both 2019 and 2020. Whereas India’s Kohli achieved this in three consecutive years from 2016 to 2018.

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The winner will be announced in April.

Labuschagne is currently ahead of his teammate in the Test rankings with a rating of 935.

The 27-year-old was named in the ICC’s Men’s Test Team of the Year for 2021 at the annual ICC Awards last month.

The leader was run-maker Travis Head on 357. After whom Labuschagne scored the second-highest run-scorer in the Ashes series with 335.

He got player of the match in Adelaide.

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“I used to go for an hour’s walk, sit on a bench and visualize my innings ball by ball – literally until I scored a century,” Labuschagne said.

“I thought: ‘If I want to score a double century, I need to imagine it’. The next week I imagined a hundred, then went to 200. I scored an unbeaten 203.

Root is also a contender for the Wisden Award as a player, second only to Labuschagne in the top 10 batsmen rankings.

He scored 322 runs for England in the Ashes, 89 in the first Test, and 50 in the second. But has struggled as a captain.

He took the most wickets in the series (21), two ahead of Mitchell Starc and three more wickets than Scott Boland.

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