Pat Cummins and Virat Kohli Secure Major Wins at ICC Awards

The 2023 ICC Player of the Year is Pat Cummins.

(Cricket News) In addition to leading Australia to the ODI World Cup title, Pat Cummins also oversaw the World Test Championship glory and kept the urn with a drawn Ashes series in England.

Cummins’s bowling excellence complemented his leadership success as he finished as the sixth-highest wicket-taker across formats in 2023, second only to teammate Nathan Lyon in Tests.
There were also some crisis knocks with the bat, like the Edgbaston Test and the support roles in the World Cup against Afghanistan and South Africa (semifinal).

However, Cummins’s accomplishments as captain and player were equally impressive.
Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year: Virat Kohli, 35, broke Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most World Cup hundreds as he amassed 1377 runs at an average of 72 and a strike rate of 99.

He was the second-highest run-scorer in 50-over cricket during the year, trailing only teammate Shubman Gill, but his incredible World Cup campaign—during which he scored a record-breaking 765 runs—played a significant role in his win.

As befitting his win, Usman Khawaja was named the men’s Test Cricketer of the Year. His comeback reached historic proportions as he concluded 2023 as the longest format’s top run scorer, finishing with 1210 runs at a healthy average of 52, three hundred, and six fifties. His Australian teammates, Steve Smith, Travis Head, and Marnus Labuschagne, were ranked behind him in the run-scoring chart.

Women’s Cricketer of the Year Nat Sciver-Brunt had another outstanding year, winning the award for the second time in a row. While she did not top the run charts in ODIs or T20Is, this was primarily because she did not play in every game for England.

Injuries and workload management played a part in this. Nevertheless, in the games that she did play, Sciver-Brunt’s consistency was amazing; she played in just six ODIs, batted five times, and scored three centuries with an overall strike rate of 107. In T20Is, the 31-year-old amassed 364 runs from just 10 innings, averaging 45 and striking a 135-strike rate.

Chamari Athapaththu, the women’s ICC ODI cricketer of the year, was just as influential as the Englishwoman. The captain of Sri Lanka was the only batter among those who scored 400+ runs in 2023 to have a strike rate above 100.

Her strike rate of 125 was easily the highest of any player, and her consistency and fast scoring style were crucial to Sri Lanka’s victories, most notably the ODI series victory against New Zealand.

With 700 runs from 14 innings, averaging 63.6 at a strike rate of 132.3, including one century and four fifties, West Indies captain Hayley Matthews won the women’s T20I Player of the Year award for her outstanding performance in the shortest format.

At 25, she topped the run charts by a country mile and made a significant contribution to the West Indies’ performances, which included a world record run chase against Australia.

Men’s T20I Player of the Year: India’s Suryakumar Yadav won the award for the second year in a row. The top-ranked batsman in the format had another successful year with the willow, scoring 733 runs at an average of 48 and striking at a strike rate of 159.6 coated with two tons and five fifties.

Although the strike rate was lower than in previous years, Suryakumar remained the cornerstone of India’s T20I batting, leading attacks around the world. Men’s Emerging Player of the Year went to New Zealand’s Rachin Ravindra, who made waves with the bat, especially in the ODI format.

He was named the World Cup’s most valuable player after finishing with 820 runs at a healthy average of 41 and a strike rate of 108.

In women’s cricket, the winner was Australia’s Phoebe Litchfield, who had an outstanding debut in her international career. She finished 2023 as the second-highest run-scorer in ODIs and had a significant impact in T20Is as well.

Kenya’s Queentor Abel won the honours in women’s Associate cricket and like Bas de Leede, she was excellent with both bat and ball. Richard Illingworth won the Umpire of the Year award.

Bas de Leede won the men’s Associate Cricketer of the Year award for his all-round contributions that were crucial to the Netherlands’ successes, particularly their qualification for the ODI World Cup.

List of the major ICC awards: