ICC World ODI Team of the Year 2009 announced

Dhoni named as captain for second year running

The ICC today announced its ODI Team of the Year, as chosen by a specially appointed selection panel chaired by West Indian batting legend Clive Lloyd.

The announcement was made at the LG ICC Awards celebration at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg. Presented in association with FICA, the ICC Awards recognise the best international players of the past 12 months.

The ICC World ODI Team of the Year is (in batting order):

Virender Sehwag (Ind)

Chris Gayle (WI)

Kevin Pietersen (Eng)

Tillakaratne Dilshan (SL)

Yuvraj Singh (Ind)

Martin Guptill (NZ)

MS Dhoni (Ind, captain, WK)

Andrew Flintoff (Eng)

Nuwan Kulasekara (SL)

Ajantha Mendis (SL)

Umar Gul (Pak)

12th man: Thilan Thushara (SL)

Six countries are represented in the 12-man line-up and just one player - Mahendra Singh Dhoni of India - also appeared in the World ODI Team of the Year in 2008. Dhoni is named as captain of the team for the second year running.

Chairman of the LG ICC Awards selection panel, Clive Lloyd said: "It was a very difficult task in selecting this year's ODI team but looking at the line-up I feel it has great balance and depth. It would be a formidable team."

Lloyd was joined on the panel by former India captain Anil Kumble, former Pakistan all-rounder Mudassar Nazar, former New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming and ex-England wicketkeeper Bob Taylor. Statistics were available as a guide but were not necessarily the overwhelming factor in the choices made.

The ICC ODI Team of the Year was one of two teams selected by the ICC selection panel along with the Test line-up. There were also eight individual prizes given at this year's LG ICC Awards.

The Selection Panel

The LG ICC Awards selection panel was charged with two main tasks: providing a long-list of nominations to the 25 members of the voting academy to cast their votes in the individual player award categories and, using their experience, knowledge and appreciation of the game, select the ICC World Test and ODI teams.

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2:23 AM

ICC Awards 2009 Announced

Sri Lanka's Tillakaratne Dilshan - who sports a beard that has been fashioned with the utmost of precision - fetches the Twenty20 International Performance of the Year award. His 96 not out off 57 balls against the West Indies in the semi-final of the World Twenty20 at The Oval on 19 June was truly sublime.

Holland's Ryan ten Doeschate won this one last year and this time around Canada's Rizwan Cheema, ten Doeschate, Ireland's William Porterfield and the Netherland's Edgar Schiferli are up for the gong. The Irishman bags it and, amidst a heavy accent that most of the audience are left to strain their ears at.

Siddle beat off Hilfenaus, Ryder and Onions to the Emerging Player of the Year award.Siddle is subjected to a gaggle of photographers, who jostle for position and insist: 'Peter, Peter, hold your trophy up high!'

ICC head honcho Haroon Lorgat announces that New Zealand have won the Spirit of Cricket award. Nominees Australia, England and Sri Lanka have lost out. Captain Vettori accepts the accolade and is characteristically humble in his acceptance speech.

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10:49 AM

Resurgence of bookies threatens cricket once again

The Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) of the International Cricket Council (ICC) has to become more vigilant now in view of the recent ‘disclosures’ of the resurgence of the illegal bookmakers.

Sir Paul Condon, the Chairman of the ACSU, was absolutely right in having pointed out in the ICC meetings in Dubai and London during the last one year or so that the Twenty20 cricket posed the greatest corruption threat to the game since the dark days of the 1990s.

The Twenty20 tournaments, having been organized during the past couple of years, are believed to have provided the perfect opportunity to the bookmakers to renew their contacts in the cricket circles.

As we are discovering now, the bookmakers were not going to limit themselves to the Twenty20 events once they have re-established firm foothold in the cricket arena. The reports are filtering in, albeit very slowly, that attempts were being made to ‘fix’ the matches of longer duration as well.

The news has broken out the other day that the Australian team management filed a report with the ICC's ACSU after a player was approached by a man suspected of links to illegal bookmaking.

It was reported that the approach was made in the bar of the team's London hotel, the Royal Kensington Garden, following Australia's Ashes defeat at Lord's in July. The matter is reportedly under investigation.

The Australian player was believed to have informed the senior officials immediately and, following ICC protocol, team manager Steve Bernard filed a report with the ACSU.

Not very long ago there were reports that some of the Pakistan players had been approached by illegal bookmakers at their team hotel in Colombo during their recent tour of Sri Lanka. The matter was investigated by the ACSU. The ICC's Chief Executive, Haroon Lorgat, declared that there was absolutely no substance to those reports.

"The ICC and its members have a zero-tolerance approach to corruption and rightly so because the integrity of our sport with its spirit is one of its greatest assets. On that basis it is entirely appropriate that any suggestions in relation to that subject are always reported to and properly investigated by the ACSU. I am pleased those investigations have indicated nothing untoward has taken place on this occasion but it is a reminder that all of us - players, officials and supporters - must maintain our vigilance to ensure we remain on top of the issue of corruption,” he was quoted as saying.


Haroon Lorgat and his team at the ICC, however, cannot be expected to sit idle because the matter is very serious indeed and it threatens the future of the game once more. If strict measures are not taken the game could suffer even more than what was witnessed in the 1990s because of the presence of so many communication tools these days.

The ICC should not be making any compromises on this issue because this concerns the future of the game.

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5:56 AM

ICC calls meeting with MCC on World Test Championship

London: The International Cricket Council has called a meeting with MCC, custodian of the game`s law, to discuss the possibility of hosting a World Test Championship, according to media reports here.

With dwindling crowd and early retirements among players signalling that the longer version of the game is not in rude health, the MCC Cricket Committee last month called for a Test tournament that can rivals ODI and Twenty20 World Cups.

"A summit between the MCC`s world cricket committee and the ICC will be held in Dubai in November, where the proposal to bring in a radical new championship will be explored," said a report.

The report quoted MCC world cricket committee chairman Tony Lewis as saying that Test cricket was not in the pink of its health and the administrators should do everything to restore it as the pinnacle of the game.

"Test match cricket must fight back to ensure it survives around the world. All of the player surveys conducted in recent years say Test cricket is under threat, which is something we simply can`t ignore.”

"By the time of our meeting in November, we hope to have more evidence that Test match cricket is under threat and to have conducted research into the issue," he said.

"We are looking at two potential formats )for a world championship) at the moment but we can`t just put them into the public domain because people will shoot them down and say they cannot work, which is why we have to commit to proper research," Lewis added.

Pointing out that England`s home series against the West Indies went almost unnoticed and Lewis, a former England captain, said the overwhelming turnout at the ongoing Ashes should not be a reason to get complacent.

"We have all accepted that Test cricket is the art of the game and we must protect it but we have to rebrand, market and merchandise it properly so it can survive," he said.

"We perhaps relax during an Ashes series about he future of Test cricket, but it has shown that it is the ultimate test of temperament and skill. It is the pinnacle of the game," he added.

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9:22 AM

ICC: A Century of Cricket

Our Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Former South African captain SHAUN POLLOCK looks back at his country’s chequered cricketing past and credits the International Cricket Council with seeing the South African game through its ups and downs

CRICKET STARTED IN South Africa in 1888-89 when a team from England came for a series and helped South Africa play its first Test at Port Elizabeth. We were the third country to play Test cricket. But trouble started brewing when the government pushed its racist policy of apartheid in sport, and cricket took a virtual backseat.

Those were days of high tension in South African cricket. It was like playing before empty galleries. Very few loved the game then. The ICC, expectedly, voted in 1970 to indefinitely suspend South Africa from world cricket because of its overtly racist policy under which the Proteas played only against the white nations: Australia, England and New Zealand.

The policies of the apartheid era meant that a legend like Basil D'Oliveira played just five Tests in his lifetime, though many now call him the best cricketer South Africa ever had. We read in the newspapers about how he had scored over 80 centuries in club cricket in Cape Town (including a double century in just one hour). But being a child of mixed race, he could not get into the national side and had to move to England. But D’Oliveira worked overtime with the ICC and highlighted — time and again — why sport and politics should not be mixed.

During those days, we lost out greatly on world cricket. It was a disturbing time. A wrong was being forced on us and the government wanted us to call it right. Top players like Mike Procter, Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock could not play international Test cricket and wasted their best years. We were thoroughly frustrated. Robin Smith and Allan Lamb emigrated to England to play for its national team, while Kepler Wessels played for Australia.The ICC helped organise our post-apartheid match in India. It was freedom for us and for them


The ICC eventually reinstated South Africa as a Test nation in 1991 after the dismantling of apartheid. I remember every moment of the November 10, 1991 match at Calcutta’s Eden Gardens and how KC Wessels, skipper Clive Rice, AC Hudson, RP Snell and DJ Richardson loved a match they lost by three wickets. Thanks to the ICC, the match was quickly organised and the team could fly out to India. It was freedom for them and freedom for us. And it happened because of the ICC and the way people like Basil D'Oliveira and later, Dr Ali Bacher, worked with the game’s controlling body to give our muchloved national game the fillip it deserved. Thrice we have made it to the semi-finals of the World Cup, including once under my captaincy, in 2003. We’ve also had a fair amount of success in various tournaments across the cricket-playing nations.

Today, we play various versions of the game and enjoy every moment of it. But it was the ICC that first warned us about apartheid, and then happily embraced South Africa when the policy changed. I think South African cricket has had some great moments with the ICC, the body that has helped us tide over some of our rough weather and helped cricket grow in our country.

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10:44 AM