Three Lankans nominated for cricket’s top awards

Chris Dhambarage

CRICKET: Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardena, champion off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan and Kumar Sangakkara have been nominated to receive top individual awards at the International Cricket Council fourth annual awards ceremony to be held on September 10 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Skipper Jayawardena along with his Australian counterpart Ricky Ponting have been nominated in four categories while Muralitharan has been featured in three categories and Sangakkara has been nominated to receive top awards in two other categories.

Jayawardena together with team mates Sangakkara and Muralitharan are long listed for the Test Player of the year award as well as for the Cricketer Of The Year award. In addition Jayawardena and Muralitharan are also top contenders for the One Day International Player award.

Jayawardena in fact is in contention to retain the Captain Of The Year award for the second successive year with the only opposition coming from the Australian skipper Ricky Ponting who led his team to win the World Cup in the West Indies recently.

The nominations were made by a five member ICC selection committee led by former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar and including Chris Cairns, Gary Kirsten, Iqbal Qasim and Alec Stewart.

The selectors will use their knowledge, skill and judgement to assess players’ performances during the voting period of August 9 2006 to August 8 2007.

The nominees for the individual awards will be voted-upon by a 56-person voting academy comprising the captains of the ten Full Member nations, the 10 umpires in the Elite Panel, eight match referees in the elite panel, and 28 former players and select members of the media.

The voting academy will also decide on the Spirit of Cricket Award, given to the one day international team that has played according to the spirit of the game.

The ICC will announce a shortlist for the awards on September 4, while the final winners will be announced at the fourth annual ICC Awards set to take place in Johannesburg on September 10, a day before the opening match of the inaugural Twenty/20 World Championship.

The nominations:

Test Player: Mohammad Asif (Pak) Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI) Stuart Clark (Aus) Matthew Hayden (Aus) Michael Hussey (Aus) Mahela Jayawardene (SL) Zaheer Khan (Ind) Anil Kumble (Ind) Brian Lara (WI) Glenn McGrath (Aus) Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) Makhaya Ntini (SA) Monty Panesar (Eng) Kevin Pietersen (Eng) Shaun Pollock (SA) Ricky Ponting (Aus) Kumar Sangakkara (SL) Ryan Sidebottom (Eng) Shane Warne (Aus) Mohammad Yousuf (Pak)

ODI Player: Shane Bond (NZ) Mark Boucher (SA) Nathan Bracken (Aus) Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI) Stuart Clark (Aus) Michael Clarke (Aus) Matthew Hayden (Aus) Michael Hussey (Aus) Mahela Jayawardene (SL) Jacques Kallis (SA) Brett Lee (Aus) Glenn McGrath (Aus) Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) Jacob Oram (NZ) Kevin Pietersen (Eng) Shaun Pollock (SA) Ricky Ponting (Aus) Yuvraj Singh (Ind) Mohammed Yousuf (Pak).

Cricketer of the Year: Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI) Matthew Hayden (Aus) Michael Hussey (Aus) Mahela Jayawardene (SL) Jacques Kallis (SA) Glenn McGrath (Aus) Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) Kevin Pietersen (Eng) Ricky Ponting (Aus) Kumar Sangakkara (SL) Mohammed Yousuf (Pak)