ICC gives no award to any Pakistani player in ICC Awards 2012

Sri Lankan batting maestro Kumar Sangakkara grabbed three of the ICC Awards 2012, including the most prestigious one of ICC Test Cricketer of the Year. Other two awards for him came in form of ICC Test Cricketer of the year and LG People’s choice award.

Sangakkara had scored 2991 international runs, the most by any batsman, between 4th August 2011 and 6th August 2012, the performance period for ICC Awards 2012. In Tests alone, he scored 1444 runs, again the most by any batsman, at average of 60.16 in the performance period.

India’s emerging star Virat Kohli (1733 Runs at average  of 66.65) who was leading run-getter in ODI Cricket between August 2011 and 2012 was honoured with ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year.

For the second year running, a West Indian spinner Sunil Narine got the award of ICC Emerging player of the year. Last year, it was Davindra Bishoo. South African opener Richard Levi who registered fastest Twneyt20 International century against New Zealand this year was donned with T20 Performance of the year Award.
Another Sri Lankan who achieved an ICC Award was an unlikely contender Kumar Dharmasena, he won Umpire of the Year Award for the first time in his career. That ended Pakistan umpire Aleem Dar’s stronghold on this award as he achieved it for three consecutive years (2009, 2010 and 2011).

With Dar’s exclusion, it meant that no one from Pakistan would be going to get an accolade this year. Last and only Pakistan player to win an award in major category is Mohamamd Yousuf, who was taken for ICC Test player of the year in 2007.

The Award ceremony was held in Colombo last night. It is reported that while some of the Pakistan players were part of the ceremony, Saeed Ajmal was not.

1. ICC Cricketer of the Year: Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)
2. ICC Test Cricketer of the Year: Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)
3. ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year: Virat Kohli (India)
4. ICC Emerging player of the Year: Sunil Narine (West Indies)
5. ICC Umpire of the Year: Kumar Dharmasena (Sri Lanka)
6. ICC T20 performance of the Year: Richard Levi (South Africa)
7. ICC Associate and Affiliate Cricketer of the Year: George Dockrell (Ireland)
8. LG People’s choice Award: Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)
9. ICC Spirit of the Cricket Award: Daniel Vettori (New Zealand)
10. Previous winners of the most prestigious award ICC Cricketer of the Year: Rahul Dravid (2004), joint-winners Jacques Kallis and Andrew Flintoff (2005), Ricky Ponting (2006), Ricky Ponting (2007), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (2008), Mitchell Johnson (2009), Sachin Tendulkar (2010), Jonathon Trott (2011).