DUBAI – Pakistan men’s team skipper Babar Azam, wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan and women team’s player Nida Dar have been nominated for the ICC awards 2022.
Babar Azam has been shortlisted for the ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year 2022 Award while Rizwan and Nida Dar were nominated in the T20 category.
Babar Azam
The Pakistan skipper has already won the same prestigious award last year and is in the running to do a repeat in 2022. Azam once again showed his prowess in the 50-over format, showing once again why he has ruled the roost at the top of the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s ODI Player Rankings since July 2021.
In the nine matches Babar played this year, the 28-year-old registered eight scores of more than fifty, three of which he converted into hundreds. He finished the year with 679 runs at a stunning average of 84.87.
It was a memorable year for Babar as captain of the Pakistan ODI team, winning three series out of three. Pakistan were unstoppable in the ODI format, losing just one match (against Australia) out of nine.
Mohammad Rizwan
The wicket-keeper batter amassed 996 runs in the year, continuing on from his record-breaking year in T20Is in 2021. Only Suryakumar Yadav made more runs in the year in men’s T20Is.
Rizwan hit 10 half-centuries in the year in T20Is, and finished with 175 runs in the T20 World Cup, the joint-most by a Pakistan batter. Averaging 45.27 in T20Is in 2022, Rizwan enhanced his reputation as a high-quality anchor at the top of Pakistan’s batting line-up.
The year also saw Rizwan claim the top position in the MRF Tyres ICC Men’s T20I Player Rankings for batters for a brief while. He ends the year at No.2 with 836 rating points.
Nida Dar
The first and the only Pakistan bowler to have claimed 100 T20I wickets, and currently, the second-highest wicket-taker in Women’s T20Is, all-rounder Nida Dar impressed more with the bat this year.
She struck three fifty-plus scores this year: an unbeaten fifty at the Commonwealth Games, similar exploits against India at the Asia Cup, and a well-made 61 at home against Ireland in November.
Dar was exceptional in the Asia Cup in which she amassed 145 runs in six matches, at a superb average of 72.50, and also claimed eight wickets at a meager 14.87 runs a piece. For her all-round brilliance, she was also voted as the ICC Women’s Player of the Month for October.
Babar Azam breaks Joe Root’s record for most Test runs in a year
