Ponting and Jayawardena top the ICC Award nomination list

Aug 29: For the 2007 ICC Award nominations for different categories have been released on Tuesday by the International Cricket Council. Australian captain Ricky Ponting and Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardena top the list with as many as four categories. The ceremony is set to take place on Sep 10 in Johannesburg.

Presented in association with the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations this is the fourth such award ceremony. Cricketers are awarded in different categories including the Best Test Player, ODI Player, Emerging Player, Cricketer of the Year, Captain of the Year and Women’s cricketers of the Year.

A five member ICC selection panel makes the nomination each year and this year the panel members were former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, former New Zealand all-rounder Chris Crains and also former South African batsmen Gary Kirsten. They were selected for the members of the committee for one year starting from Aug 09.

Ricky Ponting and Jayawardena are the only two players have been nominated for the top four categories. It seems, after the excellent World Cup performance by Ponting he may get another chance to be awarded the best cricketer of the year. In 2006 ICC Award, he was the winner of the Cricketer of the Year and Test Player of the Year Awards. However, it will be a tough decision for the members of the ICC voting panel to choose the Captain of the Year Award as Jayawardena has had a great performances so far as a captain and also an individual performer.

South African all-rounder Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis, England batting star Kevin Petersen, and Michael Hussey, Mathew Hayden of Australia along with Pakistani batsman Mohammad Yousuf are the others who have been nominated for three different categories: Test Player, ODI Player and Cricketer of the Year.

It’s really sad for Indian cricket fans that only all-rounder Yuvraj Singh and Leg-spinner Anil Kumble have nominated for category ODI Player and Test Player respectively. For this time no big names from Indian side like Sachin, Dravid or Sourav.

From this year ICC has added a new category as Associate ODI Player of the Year. This is to recognize some talented players from the countries who have not attend the full membership of ICC including Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Bermuda, Holland and Scotland.

Despite various controversies in Umpiring in cricket the ICC management has nominated Simon Taufel, Mark Benson, Steve Bucknor and Daryl Harper for Umpire of the Year. Players in women’s cricket will also be awarded for the category Women’s Cricketer of the Year.

Nominations