Indian opener Smriti Mandhana is the only Indian cricketer to be nominated by the ICC for the Cricketer of the Year honour. Interestingly, she is the only player to be nominated for the award across women and men categories.
Along with Mandhana England’s Nat Sciver, New Zealand’s Amelia Kerr and Australian opener Beth Mooney are also nominated for the honour in the women’s category.
In the men’s category, Pakistan skipper Babar Azam, England Test captain Ben Stokes, Zimbabwe all-rounder Sikandar Raza and New Zealand Test captain Tim Southee are the nominees.
Stokes is also nominated for the Test Cricket of the Year alongside Jonny Bairstow, Australia opener Usman Khawaja and South Africa speedster Kagiso Rabada.
The voting for the awards will begin next week. Fans from all across the globe will have the chance to submit their votes along with a specialist ICC Voting Academy including prominent cricket media representatives, to decide the 2022 winners, said the ICC in a statement.
Mandhana, the proud winner of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy for ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year 2021, is once again in the race to bag the coveted award in 2022.
Smriti Mandhana’s Form In 2022
Mandhana was in good form in international cricket for the second consecutive year and finished as India’s highest run-scorer across formats. She displayed impressive performances in the white-ball formats and was also the highest run-getter in T20Is, scoring 594 runs. She has also scored the second-highest runs in ODIs, 696 runs, for India.
Mandhana made sure she was noticed at the Women’s Cricket World Cup as well as the Commonwealth Games. In the Commonwealth Games, she was a major driving force that led to India going through to the final and winning the silver medal in the first-ever Women’s cricket event at the Commonwealth Games.
Among the men, Stokes is leading the race to become the Men’s Cricketer of the Year.
England’s loss against the Ashes first and then against the West Indies in Test cricket was a nightmare. Following the embarrassing loss Joe Root resigned as the Test skipper and the team captaincy was handed over to Stokes and Brendon McCullum, the coach.
Post that, Stokes has managed to take England to new heights, and win nine of the 10 Tests as captain. In the process, he has scored 870 runs, including two centuries apart from picking up 26 wickets.
However, the all-rounder did not enjoy a good white-ball year. He, in fact, announced his retirement from ODI cricket to focus more on the other formats.
In T20Is this year, he scored 143 runs and seven wickets in nine. Although the stats are not very impressive, it is to be noted that 52 of those runs came when England needed it the most in the World Cup final.
