The sixth ICC awards ceremony was held in Johannesburg, South Africa on Oct. 1.
The award show was a success as usual. I decided to take a look at the evening.
The Host
The Host for the show was Ravi Shastr (suprisingly) and hosting was sorry to say below the standards of the Awards. I wonder why Harsha Bhoghle or Alan Wilnks were not chosen.
The Categories
The Categories were same as last year
Cricketer of the Year
Test Player of the Year
ODI Player of the Year
Emerging Player
Associate and Affiliate Player of the Year
Twenty20 International Performance of the Year
Women's Cricketer of the Year
Umpire of the Year
Spirit of Cricket
But like last time, I failed to understand why Twenty20 International Performance of the Year Award was instead of player, and what is the purpose of the Spirit of Cricket award?
The Nominations
The personnel shortlisted for each award were:
Cricketer of the Year
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Ind)
Gautam Gambhir (Ind)
Mitchell Johnson (Aus)
Andrew Strauss (Eng)
Test Player of the Year
Gautam Gambhir (Ind)
Mitchell Johnson (Aus)
Thilan Samaraweera (SL)
Andrew Strauss (Eng)
ODI Player of the Year
Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Ind)
Virender Sehwag (Ind)
Yuvraj Singh (Ind)
Emerging Player
Ben Hilfenhaus (Aus)
Graham Onions (Eng)
Jesse Ryder (NZ)
Peter Siddle (Aus)
Associate and Affiliate Player of the Year
Rizwan Cheema (Can)
Ryan ten Doeschate (Ned)
William Porterfield (Ire)
Edgar Schiferli (Ned)
Twenty20 International Performance of the Year
Shahid Afridi (Pak) for scoring 51 off 34 balls and taking 2-16 against South Africa during the ICC WT20 semi-final in Nottingham on June 18
Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL) for scoring 96 not out off 57 balls against the West Indies in the semi-final of the ICC WT20 at The Oval on June 19
Chris Gayle (WI) for hitting 88 off 50 balls against Australia during the ICC WT20 at The Oval on June 6
Umar Gul (Pak) for taking 5-6 against New Zealand during the ICC WT20 at The Oval on June 13
Women's Cricketer of the Year
Charlotte Edwards (Eng)
Shelley Nitschke (Aus)
Claire Taylor (Eng)
Umpire of the Year
Aleem Dar
Tony Hill
Asad Rauf
Simon Taufel
Spirit of Cricket
Australia
England
New Zealand
Sri Lanka
The Winners
The winners were:
Player of the Year: Mitchell Johnson (Australia)
Test Player of the Year: Gautam Gambhir (India)
ODI Player of the Year: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (India)
Twenty20 International Performance of the Year: Tillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka)
Emerging Player of the Year: Peter Siddle (Australia)
Umpire of the Year: Aleem Dar (Pakistan)
Women's Cricketer of the Year: Claire Taylor (England)
Associate Player of the Year: William Porterfield (Ireland)
Spirit of Cricket: New Zealand national cricket team
I think Shaid Afridi should have won the "Twenty20 International Performance of the Year" Award but the the sympathy vote to Tillakaratne Dilshan was such a glaring case of daylight robbery that even a friend of mine who lives in a crime-ridden part of Karachi said he’d never seen anything like it.
The World Teams Of The Year
ICC selected the following teams:
Test Team of the Year is as follows (in batting order):
Gautam Gambhir (Ind)
Andrew Strauss (Eng)
AB de Villiers (SA)
Sachin Tendulkar (Ind)
Thilan Samaraweera (SL)
Michael Clarke (Aus)
MS Dhoni (Ind, WK and captain)
Shakib Al Hasan (Ban)
Mitchell Johnson (Aus)
Stuart Broad (Eng)
Dale Steyn (SA)
12th man: Harbhajan Singh (Ind)
ODI Team of the Year is as follows (in batting order):
Virender Sehwag (Ind)
Chris Gayle (WI)
Kevin Pietersen (Eng)
Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL)
Yuvraj Singh (Ind)
Martin Guptill (NZ)
MS Dhoni (Ind, WK and captain)
Andrew Flintoff (Eng)
Nuwan Kulasekara (SL)
Ajantha Mendis (SL)
Umar Gul (Pak)
12th man: Thilan Thushara (SL)
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