England are the focus in part one of our 2016 Cricket Review....
Tuesday 27 December 2016 12:32, UK
We kick off our 2016 review by focussing on the highs and lows of England's year, which began with victory in South Africa...
Stokes smashes 258
Talk about starting the year with a bang! Just a couple of days fresh from New Year's Eve celebrations, Ben Stokes ushered in 2016's arrival in some style - smashing South Africa for 258 off 198 balls in Cape Town, with his record-breaking innings containing 30 fours and 11 sixes.
Those 11 sixes, an England record for the most maximums in a Test innings, while Stokes' staggering knock was also the best ever score by an England No 6 and the highest by an England batsman against South Africa. His 163-ball double ton was also the second fastest in Test history, behind only Nathan Astle (153).
England would draw the second Test, with Hashim Amla also hitting a double hundred - at an admittedly much slower pace - as 600 played 600 on the stunning batting surface at Newlands. But it will be remembered as Stokes' Test, a real highlight in a series full of them as England triumphed 2-1 on the tour.
Cook and Broad breaking records
We've mentioned Stokes' record-breaking innings above, but for team-mates Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad, it has been record-breaking years; Cook becoming the first England batsman to reach 10,000 runs in Tests, and moving up to 10th in the all-time leading run-scorers list, while Broad became the 14th Englishman to appear in 100 Tests.
Cook - who has now since passed 11,000 runs in the otherwise dismal fifth Test defeat to India in Chennai - reached the more significant milestone of 10,000 in front of a sadly sparse crowd as England comfortably knocked off the 79 runs they required to beat a sorry touring Sri Lankan side on a blustery Monday in May, in Durham.
Broad, meanwhile, hit his 100-Test mark in the first Test against India in Rajkot, though injury sadly restricted him from featuring in three Tests of the series; preventing him from adding too greatly to his 368 Test scalps. His 48 in 2016 have seen him leapfrog the great Bob Willis (325) into third on the list of England's all-time leading wicket-takers, with Sir Ian Botham (383) now in his sights in second spot. It all means 2017 is set to be another special year for the Nottinghamshire man.
England smash Pakistan for 444
And on the topic on breaking records, it doesn't get much more emphatic than the world record score of 444-3 England's ODI team amassed against Pakistan at Trent Bridge this summer, featuring a staggering 16 sixes; Alex Hales blasting 171 off 122 balls to break Robin Smith's 23-year-old record for the highest individual ODI score for England, for good measure.
As brutal a display of big-hitting as it sounds, Jos Buttler (90no off 51) cracked a 22-ball half century, the fastest by an England batsman in ODIs, and skipper Eoin Morgan an unbeaten 57 off 27 to lift England beyond the previous record ODI score set by Sri Lanka - 443-9 against Holland in 2006.
It was utterly unforgiving stuff, with Pakistan's Wahab Riaz suffering the ignominy of conceding 110 from his 10 wicketless overs; the second worst return in ODI history. But not wanting to miss out on the record-breaking efforts, Pakistan's last-man Mohammad Amir blazed 22-ball fifty of his own - his 58 the highest score by a No 11 in ODIs, though Pakistan were ultimately well beaten by 169 runs.
Misbah's press-ups at Lord's
Pakistan fared far better in their Test whites this summer, tying the four-match series with book-end wins in the first and fourth Tests in the capital - at Lord's and The Oval - thanks in large part to a tremendous team spirit cultivated by evergreen captain, Misbah-ul-Haq.
That was best captured in one iconic moment, when the 42-year-old Misbah took to the turf at the home of cricket to punch out 10 press-ups following a fabulous century in the first Test - a pointed reference to a team-building bootcamp prior to the series.
Bumble may not have been too impressed by Misbah's technique, showing the old-timer how it's done, but Pakistan as a whole continued to flex their muscles in the Test, with a 75-run victory confirmed when Mohammad Amir - back at the scene of his 2010 spot-fixing crime - bowled Jake Ball.
England's Women dominate
England's Women end 2016 with a perfect record of six consecutive series wins which crucially have helped hem secure automatic qualification for the ICC Women's World Cup on home soil next summer, though it has been a more turbulent year at times than that record would suggest.
They came unstuck again against Australia at the semi-final stage of the ICC Women's World T20 in the spring in India, while two stalwarts of the side over the last decade (and more) were lost for a large chunk of 2016 - Sarah Taylor to a break from the game after suffering anxiety attacks, and Charlotte Edwards retiring after a 21-year England career; 11 of those skippering the side.
But a 'new' England sparked into life in the summer, earning utterly dominant whitewash 3-0 series wins over Pakistan in both ODI and T20I formats, with opener Tammy Beaumont's back-to-back ODI hundreds the highlight - the first a maiden England ton, and the second (168no) only just falling short of Edwards' record 173 against Ireland in 1997.