What is the best way to prepare for a Cricket World Cup?

With less than fifty days to go until the Men's T20 World Cup, Alison Mitchell, Jim Maxwell and Charu Sharma look at how some of the twenty teams are shaping up and ask what is the best way for players to prepare for a major international tournament?

Is it game time in a league like the Indian Premier League? Is it a competitive series with your international team? Or should players have a break to make sure that they are fresh? We look at how some players are planning for the tournament.

Plus the 161st Wisden Almanack has been released and we speak to the editor Lawrence Booth. The five Cricketers of the Year are chosen by the Wisden editor, a tradition that dates back to 1889. Performances in the English summer are the major factor and no player can win the award more than once. He tells us about his selections and the reasoning behind them.

And we debate if the use of the Kookaburra ball in the English County Championship has been a success and discuss how the different balls compare around the world.

Photo: Pandya celebrates after taking the wicket of Afghanistan's Azmatullah Omarzai during the 2023 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup one-day international (ODI) match between India and Afghanistan at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on October 11, 2023. (Photo by MONEY SHARMA/AFP via Getty Images)