Kohli, Gill, Shami Nominated For ODI Cricketer Of Year 2023

DUBAI: Four players Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Mohammed Shami and Daryl Mitchell who had an impressive Cricket World Cup in India have been shortlisted for the ICC Men's ODI Cricketer of the Year 2023 Award.

Fairly raw on the biggest stage, Shubman Gill produced performances that would make 2023 his coming-of-age year in international cricket. His most notable performances came in the ODI format, with him finishing the year with 1584 runs at an average of 63.36. It was the fifthhighest tally of runs by an Indian in a year in ODIs, only surpassed by the numbers racked up by Sachin Tendulkar (1996, 1998), Rahul Dravid (1999) and Sourav Ganguly (1999).

Mohammed Shami turned around a very average first half of 2023 into a spectacle in the second half, peaking at the Cricket World Cup for India.

Despite the missing the first few games of the tournament, Shami stormed back into the playing XI and finished the tournament as the highest wicket-taker with 24 scalps at a staggering average of 10.7. Notably, Shami took three fivewicket hauls and a four-wicket haul in the seven matches he played in the tournament. The seamer also broke the record for India's leading wicket-taker at Men's Cricket World Cups, taking his tally up to 55 wickets in just 18 games.

Virat Kohli built on his comeback in 2022 with a spectacular 2023, where he found peak form in ODIs, and capped it off with a Player of the Tournament performance at the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023. India's number three smashed at least a half-century in nine of his 11 innings at the World Cup, finishing with a mind-blowing 765 runs, the most ever scored by an individual batter at a men's Cricket World Cup, going past the previous record set by Sachin Tendulkar in 2003.

Daryl Mitchell was in top form in ODIs in 2023, finishing the year with a whopping 1204 runs, the third-most recorded in a calendar year in the format by a New Zealand player.