Our look back at the past year continues as Tristan Holme picks out his top ten performances of 2011.

10. Virender Sehwag
219 v West Indies, Fourth ODI, Indore
The biggest knock in one-day history only comes in at number ten on our list, which tells you just how good a year it was. It's a credit to Virender Sehwag's vast talent that, upon reflection, this enormous score almost seems like it was inevitable. And it's because of his talent that it ranks so low on this list, since it made the achievement seem effortless next to some of the performances below. After all, he was batting against a fairly ordinary attack on an excellent pitch that allowed him to play his natural game, and he was inexplicably dropped before he reached the magical double.

9. Patrick Cummins
7 for 177 v South Africa, Second Test, Wanderers
Plenty of sportsmen arrive on the international scene all hyped up; very few actually deliver. Lest we forget, Cummins had played just four first-class matches prior to the tour of South Africa in October and November. But with each Twenty20 and one-day performance he put in during the build-up to that Test series his stock rose, and after the nightmare of Newlands the selectors had little excuse not to include him. For someone with so little experience, Cummins' natural mental skill was what shone through. Although he only took one wicket in the first innings, by the second he had worked out where he could improve and the results were sublime. Jacques Kallis, South Africa's most experienced batsman, was roughed up, worked over and summarily dispatched. AB de Villiers was induced to drive at a wide-ish ball to end a potentially match-winning partnership. Cummins finished with six wickets and Australia, though few knew it at the time, had a shot. If Cummins' 'up-for-it' mentality wasn't already clear enough, he stood up to Dale Steyn and hit the winning runs to seal a famous victory.

8. Brendan Taylor
117 v New Zealand, One-off Test, Bulawayo
At dinner on the fourth evening, Brendan Taylor and his teammates were looking forward to the following evening's celebrations. "Let's draw first though," said the skipper to emphasise that there was a big job to be done in seeing out the final day. He must have had a terrific night's sleep, because drawing the match seemed to be the last thing on Taylor's mind when he went out to bat the next morning. Fifty came up at a run a ball, and even then he showed no sign of slowing down. The century arrived before tea, and New Zealand's panic was clear to see. A fidgety Ross Taylor altered his fields to make them defensive, and the cussing out in the middle grew more desperate as the tourists tried to unnerve their less experienced opponents. All the while Taylor stroked the ball around the ground, and carted the hapless Jeetan Patel out of it. For the captain of a side who are often easily cowed, it was the chutzpah of the knock which resonated loudest, and although he failed to take them home, Taylor succeeded in creating one of the finest Test matches of recent years.

7. Kevin O'Brien
113 from 63 balls v England, World Cup Match, Bangalore
Even now it just doesn't seem right. Underdogs are allowed a victory from time to time, but they don't come back from 111 for five to chase down 328. But Ireland did. The supporting roles of the lower order should not be forgotten, but neither should Kevin O'Brien's composure once he'd got Ireland close. The statistics from this knock - six sixes, 13 fours, the fastest century in World Cup history - would suggest a slogger come good, yet this was a show of calculated hitting and intelligence. Of course it was eye-popping to see the ball continually disappear into the second tier at midwicket, but just as impressive was the sight of O'Brien pushing the singles once the equation was down to a run a ball.

6. Doug Bracewell
9 for 60 v Australia, second Test, Hobart
He couldn't get the better of David Warner, either on the field or off it, but Doug Bracewell confirmed that his captain's very public pronouncements about the youngster's talent had some merit. The final day in Hobart was largely remembered for Australia losing, which is a bit unfair when you consider the quality of the bowling that sank them. Chris Martin started the collapse by dismissing his bunny Phil Hughes, but Bracewell took it from there as he rifled through the Australian middle order. When that didn't quite seal it, he returned to smash through the last three wickets and finish the match by breaking Nathan Lyon's resistance.

5. Andrew Strauss
158 v India, World Cup Match, Bangalore
To realise just how good Andrew Strauss' knock against India was, it's necessary to recall just how hopeless England's situation seemed during the dinner break at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Sachin Tendulkar's masterful hundred had given India 338, and although England had pulled things back in the last few overs by taking six for 33, the damage had already been done. Consider also that Strauss had long since been written off by his own media and public as a one-day player. Ironically, this was his only hundred of 2011, a period during which he would be up for cricket's man of the year should such a thing exist. Throughout the knock there was an assumption that it must end soon. A searing Zaheer Khan yorker eventually did the trick to let India back into the match, but not before Strauss had shown that hopeless situations meant nothing to England in the World Cup, whichever side of that situation they happened to be on.

4. Mahela Jayawardene
103 not out from 88 balls v India, World Cup final, Mumbai
There were plenty more brutal innings at the World Cup, some of which feature on this list. But none were so graceful, so silky, so cleverly paced or so heartbreakingly unlucky. It was an innings played under constant pressure as Sri Lanka did their best to recover from a nervously slow start, though you wouldn't have known it from the serenity with which Jayawardene went about his business. The effortless manner in which he stroked India's fast bowlers in any direction he cared at the end of the innings - not once playing a shot in anger - gave him the aura of a batsman with Godlike powers. Despite the end result, it remains one of the great innings in World Cup history.

3. Stuart Broad
8 for 76, 64 and 44 v India, Second Test, Trent Bridge
In the aftermath of England's 4-0 series victory it was easy to forget that India had their chances. By the end of the series they were a ragged bunch, yet at 267 for four on the second evening at Trent Bridge in response to England's 221 all out, a side who often lost first Tests before bouncing back in the second looked to have resumed normal business. If England's selectors were more ruthless, Stuart Broad would have been playing county cricket. Instead he hit a battling 64 to give England a somewhat respectable total, and now his bowling came to the fore as he had Yuvraj Singh caught behind, and followed it up with England's 12th Test hat-trick in a superb spell of full fast bowling. Sure, Harbhajan Singh would never have been out if the DRS had been in place, but Broad's spell turned the match - and the series - as India lost six wickets for 21 runs.

2. Jacques Kallis
161 and 109 not out v India, Third Test, Cape Town
It may have ended in a draw, but this was a colossal series that finished with a colossal decider that saw two of the best teams in the world matched each other blow for blow. It was a match of titans in which Sachin Tendulkar denied an on-song Dale Steyn for almost eight hours to wrestle control away from the hosts. Either side of that innings of 146, Jacques Kallis compiled a couple of masterpieces which twice dug South Africa out of holes and put them in the driver's seat. In the first innings Kallis' technical poise was masterly as he overcame cloudy conditions on the first day. The second was a triumph of will and determination as he received numerous pain-killing jabs to quell a sidestrain that had him wincing every time his body was stretched. In a clash of giants, even an injured Kallis stood tallest.

1. MS Dhoni
91 not out from 79 balls v Sri Lanka, World Cup Final, Mumbai
In years to come when the scorecard for the 2011 World Cup final is examined, MS Dhoni's innings will stand out as one of the great captain's knocks. It will show that he came in at a critical moment in the match, with India 114 for three in the 22nd over chasing 275, and scored at better than a run a ball to take India home. It won't show that he was batting on a tricky pitch that lacked pace, or that he was racked by debilitating back pain for much of his innings. The enormity of the occasion will be plain to anyone with even the slightest imagination, yet the scorecard could never display the extent of the pressure on Dhoni's shoulders even if it listed the population statistics that were published in the newspapers shortly after the final. Only a stratospheric event could prevent it from becoming Dhoni's career-defining moment.

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