Indian players Suryakumar and Siraj bag ICC honours
NEW DELHI: India’s right-handed bater Suryakumar Yadav was named winner of the ICC Mens T20I Cricketer of the year 2022 award. He also becomes the first Indian to win the honour, whereas India’s right-arm fast-bowler Mohammed Siraj has become the new number one bowler in the ICC Men’s ODI Player Rankings for bowlers.
Suryakumar beat competition from England’s let-arm pace all-rounder Sam Curran, Zimbabwe’s off-spin all-rounder Sikandar Raza and 2021 award winner, Pakistan’s wicketkeeper-bater Mohammad Rizwan, to get the coveted honour.
“Thank you so much, ICC for naming me ICC Men’s T20I Cricketer of the Year. It’s a great feeling as 2022 was amazing for me. From a personal point of view, I enjoyed the few knocks I played in that year.
“If I had to pick one knock which was very special to me, was the first hundred for my country (against Englandinthethirdt20iatnotingham)becausethe firsthundredisalwaysspecial.hopefully,manymore knocks to come,” he said on receiving the award.
Suryakumar had a sensational 2022 in the shortest format of the game, becoming just the second bater to score more than 1000 runs in a year in the format with his 360-degree strokeplay. He ended the year as the highest run-geter, scoring 1164 runs at a ridiculous strike rate of 187.43, averaging 46.56.
His tally of 68 sixes in 2022 is the highest anyone has hit in the format in a year by a fair distance. With two hundreds and nine half-centuries in the year, he was undoubtedly the standout men’s T20I bater, achieving a career-high 890 rating points to be the top-ranked T20I bater in 2022.
Suryakumar had lit up the Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia, slamming 239 runs at an outstanding averageof59.75andawhoppingstrikerateof189.68, including match-tempo changing fities against South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Netherlands.
SIRAJ ON TOP: Siraj has become the new number one bowler, going past New Zealand’s let-arm seamer Trent Boult and Australia’s fast bowler Josh Hazlewood.
It’s a remarkable rise for Siraj, who only returned to India’s ODI setup in February last year following a three-year hiatus from the format and was even named in Men’s ODI Team of the Year for 2022 on Tuesday. Siraj’s rise to the top is more astonishing considering that he conceded 76 runs on his ODI debut against Australia in Adelaide in January 2019.
Sincehisodicomeback,siraj,28,hascollected37 wickets from 20 matches to be one of India’s most consistent fast bowlers and earning accolades from the cricketing world over providing crucial strikes with the ball in the first ten overs in the initial days of 2023. Siraj took nine wickets against Sri Lanka to be the leading wicket-taker in the three-game series and backed that up by claiming a four-wicket haul while conceding 46 runs in the opening match of the recently-completed series against New Zealand at his home ground in Hyderabad.
It means Siraj jumps to the top of the ODI bowler rankings with 729 rating points, albeit narrowly, with his lead at the top over Hazlewood just two rating points higher than the Australian. Other Indian bowlers to be previously number one in the Men’s ODI rankings are Kapil Dev, Maninder Singh, Anil Kumble, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah.