Kohli, Samuels In Line For Awards – Lankans Absent From List
- ESPN CRICinfo Awards 2016
Kohli, Chris Jordan, Younis Khan, Marlon Samuels, Stuart Broad and Mehedi Hasan are among the players up for honours in the ESPNcricinfo Awards for 2016, which will be announced starting 9pm Friday night.
The awards, which honour the best performances in international cricket’s various formats for the preceding year, are in their tenth edition, and this year feature 95 nominations across 12 categories, including, for the first time, best batting and bowling performances by women’s and Associate players.
Kohli earned a total of five nominations – two for T20I batting, one apiece for ODI and Test batting, and for Captain of the Year – a reflection of the extraordinary year he had.
The T20I batting nominations are heavy on West Indian performances from the World T20 in India early in 2016: among the nominees are Marlon Samuels’ 85 not out in the men’s final, against England, which set his team up for their second title in the tournament; Chris Gayle’s even 100 against the same opposition earlier in the tournament; and Carlos Brathwaite’s unbeaten 34 which took his side over the line and to the title.
Four South Africans feature in the ODI batting shortlist – Chris Morris, AB de Villiers, David Miller and Quinton de Kock. And Afghanistan players take six of the ten nominations across the Associate batting and bowling categories.
England’s improved fortunes in one-day cricket are reflected in a range of nominations, with Chris Woakes, Jason Roy and Alex Hales all featuring in the ODI batting category, Jake Ball in the ODI bowling, and Chris Jordan and Joe Root earning T20 nominations for their parts in England’s run to the World T20 final. Ben Stokes, the IPL’s man of the moment, picks up a Test batting nomination for his blistering 258 against South Africa.
Three Indians, Karun Nair, Jasprit Bumrah and Jayant Yadav are in the running to be voted Debutant of the Year, as are England openers Haseeb Hameed and Keaton Jennings.
The ESPNcricinfo Awards are voted on by a panel of eminent former cricketers – among them Mahela Jayawardene, Ian Chappell, Courtney Walsh, Mark Butcher, Ramiz Raja and Daryll Cullinan – and the site’s senior writers and editors.
Three players have won three awards apiece over the history of the ESPNcricinfo Awards: Sachin Tendulkar, Lasith Malinga, and Rohit Sharma. Another four – Dale Steyn, Umar Gul, Shahid Afridi and Virender Sehwag – have won two each.
