ICC Announces Nominees For Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy For The Player Of The Year 2022

Updated - 30 Dec 2022, 06:57 PM

Nominees for ICC Cricketer of the Year 2022 award- Babar, Stokes, Raza and Southee | ICC

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The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the nominees for the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year on Friday, December 30. Pakistan skipper Babar Azam, Zimbabwe all-rounder Sikandar Raza, New Zealand pacer Tim Southee, and England Test captain Ben Stokes have all been nominated.

The ICC Awards 2022 will honour the best international cricketers in specific formats. The winner of the award will be decided by online fan voting and the ICC Voting Academy. Following the voting process, the winners will be announced in January 2023. Shaheen Shah Afridi has been awarded the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for ICC Player of the Year 2021.

Shaheen Afridi — Shaheen Shah Afridi with the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the ICC Player of the Year Award 2021 (Photo-: ishaheenafridi10 / IG)

Rahul Dravid (2004), Jacques Kallis and Andrew Flintoff (2005), Ricky Ponting (2006, 2007), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (2008), Mitchell Johnson (2009), Sachin Tendulkar (2010), Jonathan Trott (2011), Kumar Sangakkara (2012), Michael Clarke (2013), Mitchell Johnson (2014), Steve Smith (2015), Ravichandran Ashwin (2016), Virat Kohli (2017, 2018), and Ben Stokes (2019) have won the ICC Player of the Year Award in previous years.

Babar Azam

Babar Azam was the only player in international cricket this year to score more than 2000 runs, amassing 2598 runs at an average of 54.12 with eight hundreds, and 17 fifties. Pakistan’s captain has been consistent in one-day international cricket, scoring 679 runs in nine games, including eight fifty-plus scores. He has led Pakistan to its first T20 World Cup Final since 2009. Pakistan won all three ODI series they played, losing only one match out of nine.

Ben Stokes

The English team was in shambles after losing the Ashes and the West Indies series last year, having won only one of their previous 17 Test matches. England’s home Test summer began with a new captain and coach.

As England’s Test captain, Ben Stokes has led the team to new heights. He has won nine of his ten Tests as captain. He has scored 870 runs, including two centuries, and taken 26 wickets in the longer format. He scored 143 runs, took seven wickets in nine T20Is, and played a match-winning 52-run knock against Pakistan in the ICC T20 World Cup final.

Sikandar Raza

Sikandar Raza emerged as Zimbabwe’s crisis man this year, scoring over 600 runs in both T20Is and ODIs. Since his debut in 2013, the all-rounder has had his most productive year with both bat and ball. In ODIs, Raza scored 645 runs at an average of 49.61, including three fifties.

He scored 745 runs in T20Is at a strike rate of over 150 and took 25 wickets at an economy rate of 6.13. In July, he was named player of the tournament in the T20 World Cup Qualifier B, and he carried that form into the mega event, winning player of the match three times, including in Zimbabwe’s historic victory over Pakistan.

Tim Southee

Tim Southee was one of the best performers for New Zealand with the ball in 2022. The 34-year-old was especially effective in white-ball formats, taking crucial wickets in all phases of the game. He concluded the year with 65 wickets, the most by a New Zealander in a calendar year.

Southee had the most wickets for his country, taking 28 in eight matches in the longer format. The Blackcaps advanced to the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup semi-finals. In the major event, he took seven wickets in five matches with an economy rate of 6.57.

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