Aussies celebrate at ICC awards
Australian captain Ricky Ponting picked up both of the major honours as the world’s top cricketing nation dominated the annual International Cricket Council awards.
Ponting, who was voted as player of the year and test player of the year, said that team-mate Shane Warne should have been given the test award.
“To be honest, I was shocked when I was named the test player of the year,” said Ponting. “I thought Shane deserved it more than me.”
Warne took 96 wickets in the year while Ponting played 16 tests, scoring 1,791 international test runs at an average of 68.88.
Ponting was also named on both the ICC one-day international and test teams which were selected by a five-man selection panel consisting of Sunil Gavaskar, Ian Healy, Arjuna Ranatunga, Waqar Younis and Allan Donald.
Captain confusion
But he missed out on the captains’ awards. Mahela Jayawardene of Sri Lanka was named as the year’s best captain while Rahul Dravid of India took the test award.
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Dravid’s test captain award |
Dravid and Jayawardene’s awards surprised many in the crowd at the ceremony in Mumbai.
Dravid has led India for only a year, losing a test series in Pakistan, beating Sri Lanka and drawing with England at home, before a rare away series win in the West Indies.
Jayawardene, who replaced the injured Marvan Atapattu as Sri Lankan captain, convincingly won a one-day series in England but failed to make the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy.
“I am as confused as the next man on how these awards were decided,” Gundappa Vishwanath, a former Indian batsman who attended the ceremony, said. “I am not surprised that Ponting is more shocked than happy.”
‘Great night’
However, Australian cricket continued to celebrate as Michael Hussey named one-day player of the year, Karen Rolton the first women’s player of the year and Simon Taufel best umpire for the third successive time.
“It’s a great night for Australian cricket,” said Ponting. “It has been a satisfying year personally and also for the rest of the team.
“We have set a new standard for ourselves, we’ve worked hard and thankfully it’s paying off for us at the moment.”
He said losing the Ashes to England last year had strengthened Australian resolve to win the return clash starting later this month.
“I think we learned a lot from that Ashes series and we are a better team for that so I think we will be a very difficult side to beat this summer.
“The challenge for us now is to try to win the Champions Trophy final against the West Indies on Sunday and then head back to Australia and try to win the Ashes back.”
England batsman Ian Bell won the emerging player of the year award while England picked up the spirit of cricket award.
World Test Team of the Year: 1 Matthew Hayden, 2 Michael Hussey, 3 Ricky Ponting, 4 Rahul Dravid (capt), 5 Mohammed Yousuf, 6 Kumar Sangakkar (wk), 7 Andrew Flintoff, 8 Shane Warne, 9 Makhaya Ntini, 10 Muttiah Muralitharan, 11 Glenn McGrath. 12th man: Brett Lee.
World One-Day Team of the Year: 1 Adam Gilchrist (wkt), 2 MS Dhoni, 3 Ricky Ponting, 4 Mahela Jayawardene (capt), 5 Yuvraj Singh, 6 Michael Hussey, 7 Andrew Flintoff, 8 Irfan Pathan, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Shane Bond, 11 Muttiah Muralitharan. 12th man: Andrew Symonds.