Narine wins ICC Emerging Player award

Colombo, Sep 15 (IANS) West Indies spinner Sunil Narine was named Emerging Cricketer of the Year at the International Cricket Council Awards here Saturday.

The 24-year-old from Trinidad, follows in the footsteps of last year's winner and fellow West Indies bowler, Devendra Bishoo, in claiming the award.

The off-spinner played in three Tests for the West Indies, claiming 12 wickets at an average 31.50, while in the 15 ODIs he played in he claimed 28 wickets at an average of 18.82.

Narine was the top choice of the 32-person voting academy, coming out ahead of Sri Lanka's Dinesh Chandimal, Doug Bracewell of New Zealand and Australia's James Pattinson.

In Sri Lanka as part of the West Indies ICC World Twenty20 squad, he said upon receiving the award: "We've a good junior set-up so hopefully the awards keep coming for us. I think this has been the best 12 months for me and I just keep adapting the best as possible. Hopefully I can keep going the best I can and keep competing for the West Indies.

"I need to digest this (award) and this one step at time and enjoy every minute that I play."

Previous winners of the award include Irfan Pathan (2004), Kevin Pietersen (2005), Ian Bell (2006), Shaun Tait (2007), Ajantha Mendis (2008), Peter Siddle (2009), Steven Finn (2010) and Devendra Bishoo (2011).