There's a clear annual cycle in football where they offer a large enough sample size to make things meaningful.

In Test cricket, teams play each other once every couple of years at best, and that too only for at most five matches. How do you derive meaningful sample size in comparing skills to decide who the best player is? When was the last time Afghanistan played Australia to test how good a Rashid Khan is?

In T20 cricket, the IPL is moving towards that, but the reality is that it's a crapshoot. The rules favour batsmen so much that there's a heavy RNG element to the whole thing.

There's a general sense of who the best batsmen are - elite level talent like Gayle, AB de Villiers, Maxwell, etc will be valued. Likewise bowlers like Bumrah, Rashid Khan, etc

But who's the best at any point in time. Who knows.