Tendulkar wins ICC Player of the Year award

BANGALORE - Sachin Tendulkar won the ‘Player of the Year’ award while Virender Sehwag was voted ‘Test Player of the Year’ in the International Cricket Council’s award ceremony here Wednesday.

Tendulkar became the seventh player to win the coveted Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy and was short-listed from among Virender Sehwag, Hashim Amla and Graeme Swann.

Rahul Dravid (2004), Andrew Flintoff and Jacques Kallis (joint winners in 2005), Ricky Ponting (2006 and 2007), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (2008) and Mitchell Johnson (2009) are the previous winners.

Tendulkar also became the first-ever recipient of the LG People’s Choice Award.

“It’s fantastic to win this award, I’m really excited to have won two awards and this last season for the entire team has been really special.

“I think right from the start of the season when we won in Sri Lanka and I scored a hundred in the finals and from there on the season took off for us. We became number one in the Test rankings, something we all wanted to achieve and weve been able to maintain our performances in the last 10 months.

During the voting period (Aug 24, 2009 to Aug 10, 2010), the 37-year-old from Mumbai played in 10 Tests, striking 1,064 runs, including six centuries, at an average of 81.84.

Tendulkar also played in 17 ODI matches in the time, scoring 914 runs that also included the master batsmans record-breaking double-century against South Africa in Gwalior.

ICC President Sharad Pawar congratulated Tendulkar: “Sachin Tendulkar has been the focal point of Indian cricket now for some 20 years and over the past year his superb batting and hard work has continued to illustrate his importance in the India team batting line-up. Sachin’s statistics for the last 12 months show how worthy a winner of this accolade he is,” said Pawar.

Sehwag beat strong contenders — teammate Tendulkar and the South African duo of Dale Steyn and Hashim Amla — to claim the first ICC award of his career.

Sehwag made 1,282 runs with an impressive average of 85.46 in the 10 Tests. He scored six centuries and four half-centuries.

“It’s fantastic to win the award to take over the title from Gautam Gambhir.

“I try to play the best I can in Test cricket and play the same way I do in every format of the game. I’m a huge fan of Test cricket and I love to play it more than Twenty20 or one-day cricket.”

South Africa’s AB de Villiers, Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardena, Australia’s Michael Hussey and England’s Andrew Strauss were also contenders for the award.

The award, which was included for the first time, was chosen by cricket fans around the world.

South Africas AB de Villiers won the ODI Player of the Year award, surpassing Indias Sachin Tendulkar and the Australia duo of Shane Watson and Ryan Harris.

New Zealand won ICC Spirit of Cricket Award for second year in a row.

England fast bowler Steven Finn was voted the ICC Emerging Player of the Year award.

The 21-year-old, who played in six Test matches in the voting period, took 27 wickets at an average of 21.85.

Australia all-rounder Shelley Nitschke was named Womens Cricketer of the Year

ICC also announced the World Test Team of the Year and ODI Team of the Year

An independent selection panel, chaired by West Indies legend Clive Lloyd, comprising former players, respected members of the media, an elite umpire and an elite match referee voted for the awards.

Test Team of the Year (in batting order): Virender Sehwag (Ind), Simon Katich (Aus), Sachin Tendulkar (Ind), Hashim Amla (SA), Kumar Sangakkara (SL), Jacques Kallis (SA), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (India, wicket-keeper), Graeme Swann (Eng), James Anderson (Eng), Dale Steyn (SA), Doug Bollinger (Aus).

World ODI Team of the Year (in batting order): Sachin Tendulkar (Ind), Shane Watson (Aus), Michael Hussey (Aus), AB de Villiers (SA), Paul Collingwood (Eng), Ricky Ponting (Aus, captain), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (India, wicket-keeper), Daniel Vettori (NZ), Stuart Broad (Eng), Doug Bollinger (Aus), Ryan Harris (Aus).