No Pakistanis shortlisted in ICC top cricketers

Cook and Trott are in running for both the ICC Cricketer of the Year and the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year awards at a ceremony set for September 12 in London. England batsmen Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott, Hashim Amla of South Africa and last year’s ICC Cricketer of the Year Sachin Tendulkar of India have all been shortlisted for the top honour at the LG ICC Awards 2011.
The votes have now been cast by the independent 25-person academy and these four men are the ones in the running to receive the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the ICC Cricketer of the Year at a glittering ceremony in London on September 12, 2011. In addition, Trott and Cook are also shortlisted for the ICC Test Player of the Year alongside England team-mate James Anderson and South Africa’s Jacques Kallis at the eighth annual LG ICC Awards, presented in association with the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA). Amla is also in contention for the ICC ODI Player of the Year award and he is shortlisted in that category alongside Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara, Australia’s Shane Watson and ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 winner Gautam Gambhir of India.
The Twenty20 International (T20I) Performance of the Year sees New Zealand’s Tim Southee shortlisted alongside England’s Tim Bresnan, Australia’s Shane Watson and South Africa’s JP Duminy. This year’s LG ICC Awards includes 10 individual prizes, including the LG People’s Choice Award and also features a newly designed Spirit of Cricket Award which honours a moment by an international player that has most adhered to the spirit of cricket. This award is nominated and voted for by the ICC Emirates Elite Panel match referees and the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Umpires.
The long lists were made by a five-man ICC selection panel chaired by former West Indies captain and current chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee Clive Lloyd. The panel also includes former captains Zaheer Abbas of Pakistan, England’s Mike Gatting, New Zealand’s Danny Morrison and South Africa’s Paul Adams. The David Shepherd Trophy for ICC Umpire of the Year award was voted on by the 10 current Test captains and the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees and is partly based on the umpires’ performance statistics.
This year’s nominees are 2009 and 2010 ICC Umpire of the Year Aleem Dar and five-time ICC Umpire of the Year Simon Taufel, along with Austalia’s Steve Davis and Ian Gould of England.
The ICC Emerging Player of the Year nominees’ shortlist features two players from the West Indies – Devendra Bishoo and Darren Bravo – and two from Pakistan, Wahab Riaz and Azhar Ali. To qualify for that award a player must be under the age of 26 at the start of the observation period and have played fewer than five Tests and/or 10 ODIs and or five T20Is at the start of the voting period.
The ICC Associate and Affiliate Player of the Year award serves to recognise and reward the efforts in all international matches of the outstanding cricketers from the teams outside the ICC Full Members. The LG ICC Awards ceremony is now in its eighth year and it will be held in London, England this year. Previous ceremonies were held in London (2004), Sydney (2005), Mumbai (2006), Johannesburg (2007 and 2009), Dubai (2008) and Bengaluru (2010).
England dominate ICC test team of the year: England’s new status as the top team in Test cricket was reflected on Friday when five of their players were named in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Test Team of the Year. Batsmen Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott were joined by all-rounder Stuart Broad, fast bowler James Anderson and spinner Graeme Swann, in a side picked by a selection panel chaired by West Indies batting great Clive Lloyd. South African paceman Dale Steyn was selected for the fourth year in a row, while Indian batting master Sachin Tendulkar made his third successive appearance in the line-up.
“The selection of this year’s Test team was a difficult one with so many worthy candidates available to fill just 12 places,” said Lloyd. “The team has a formidable line-up that bats well down the order and has bowlers with the ability and form to dismiss any opposition twice on any surface,” he added.
ICC Test team of the Year
Alastair Cook (ENG), Hashim Amla (RSA), Jonathan Trott (ENG), Sachin Tendulkar (IND), Kumar Sangakkara (SRI; wkt/capt), AB de Villiers (RSA), Jacques Kallis (RSA), Stuart Broad (ENG), Graeme Swann (ENG), Dale Steyn (RSA), James Anderson (ENG), Zaheer Khan (IND; twelfth man)