This 141st edition of the world’s most famous sports book now covers the calendar year, and tries to make sense of the hectic cricketing year of 2003, when the England team could be pathetic losers one day and comeback kings the next.

In addition to the traditional Five Cricketers of the Year, for the first time Wisden names its choice of Leading Cricketer in the World. There are profiles of the No.1 and the rest of the game’s greatest current players: the Wisden 40, and profiles of all the players who appeared for England in 2003.

Elsewhere Nasser Hussain pays tribute to his most formidable opponent, Steve Waugh, and reveals how England tried to counter him. Robin Marlar celebrates Sussex in their triumphant Championship year, and Glenn Moore considers the lives of Graham Thorpe and Michael Vaughan, who once wanted to be footballers, and compares them to Jonny Wilkinson and the Neville brothers – brilliant schoolboy cricketers whose lives took a different turn.

There are full reports of the year’s big cricket including the World Cup, the thrilling England–South Africa series, England’s pre-Christmas tour of Sri Lanka, Matthew Hayden’s Test record 380 in Perth, and the brave new madcap world of Twenty20 cricket.

There is also news of cricket inside one of Saddam Hussain’s palaces and of games played on lava fields, salt plains and frozen harbours.

Wisden also includes:

· Full scorecards and reports on every Test and ODI series completed in the 15 months to December 2003

· Full scorecards and reports on every first-class county match in the 2003 season

· Reviews and scores of overseas 2002–03 season

· A comprehensive records section

· A register of all 2,384 cricketers to have played Tests

· Obituaries of leading figures from the cricketing world who died in 2003