Forgive me please short form advocates, but I'm doing my list based on Test cricket - the true and rightful king of cricket formats
And yeah I've seen more of Australia than anyone else, so they'll be mentioned more...Stinky's also picked a few good ones that I support
Batting Category
Best Batsman - Michael Clarke.
Best Youngster - Cheteshwar Pujara.
Most Improved Batsman - Marlon Samuels.
Best Innings - Dave Warner for his 180 vs India at Perth. Only 2 other guys in the Test made it past 50, yet Warner came out and pummelled the India pace quartet. 100 came off only 69 balls. Also liked
Alastair Cook's 176 in first Test vs India when they were following on, probably best fighting innings of the year, even though India still won.
Failure of the year - Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman trio for India. Ricky Ponting's final series as well
Bowling Category
Best Bowler - Too hard. Either Ajmal or Herath, maybe Siddle. The SA pace trio were pretty good too.
Best Youngster - Kemar Roach. I liked what I saw from Trent Boult as well.
Most Improved Bowler - Monty! Tim Southee as well has bowled a lot better.
Best Innings - Hmm, probably
Tim Southee's 7/64 vs India. Not often you see those kind of figures in India for a paceman and it was quality stuff.
Failure of the year - Imran Tahir: 0/180 off 23 overs vs Australia at Adelaide. And 0/80 off 14 in the 2nd innings too...also got a wicket off a no ball, as a spinner - triple fail! Rest of his year wasn't fantastic either.
All Rounder Category
Best All Rounder - Jacques Kallis - still the king.
Best All Round performance - Vernon Philander in that Test vs England where he made 60-odd and 30-odd with bat, and then took 5/30 to bowl out England in their 4th innings chase.
Team Category
Best Team - South Africa a smidge ahead of Australia and then England. England finished strong, but they lost 7 Tests this year. SA haven't lost a Test this year, but came very close in Australia.
Most Improved Team - SA and Eng haven't really improved, SL is treading water. Really has to be Australia or Pakistan. Maybe NZ if their pace bowling keeps improving. Need some batsmen though...
Decline of the year - India...
Rate your team (/10) with description (optional) - Australia 8/10. Think they've done well in their home series vs India and SA (better than I'd hoped - particularly vs India). Away vs WI wasn't so impressive, but they still won 2-0. We aren't doing too bad considering there aren't a lot of stars in the Aussie side anymore.
Misc
Best Tournament/Series - None really stood out. I like the Eng-Pak series from earlier in the year. Probably the Aus-SA series though, had some fast scoring and obvious quality in the batting and bowling.
Best match - The Aus-SA Test draw in Adelaide. Went down to the wire and featured a bit of everything: almost 500 runs in a day and then a 5th day of defensive batting
Most surprising/shocking incident - The Kevin Pietersen affair...what a farce.
Best Wicketkeeper - No idea! All seems pretty even to me. I've seen mistakes this year from just about all of them. Best batting keeper is still Prior, although when de Villiers gets his game together he'll probably get that crown.
Best Captain - Michael Clarke
Best moment for your team - First Test of the year, beating India by an innings at Sydney, 329 for Clarke and a 2-0 lead in the series.
Player of 2012 - Michael Clarke
Emerging Player of 2012 - Cheteshwar Pujara
