The International Cricket Council (ICC) has today (Jan 18) announced the ICC Awards for the last year along with the Test team and the ODI team of the year. The period considered for these awards was between 21 September 2016 to 31 Dec 2017.
Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year – Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli was chosen for this award as he scored runs across all the International formats just for fun. Ashwin was honored last year with this award. This is the first time Indians have been given this award in two successive years. “It’s probably the biggest award that we have in world cricket. Two Indians getting it back to back makes it more special,” said Virat Kohli.
“I’m really really honored and I’d like to thank the ICC for recognizing all the hard work that we all put in for our respective sides and I want to congratulate all the other winners also,” added Virat.
ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year – Virat Kohli
Can you name a single player who is a better cricketer than Virat Kohli at the moment in shorter format of the game?! Virat scored the most runs in the calendar year 2017 despite being rested from the series against Sri Lanka. This is the second time Virat Kohli has got this award having being awarded it previously in 2012.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni in 2008 & 2009 and Virat Kohli in 2012 & 2017 are the only Indian players to be honored with this award twice till date.
Below are the figures of Virat Kohli across all formats in the period that was taken into consideration for the awards:
| Format | Innings | Runs Scored | Highest Score | Batting Average | 100s / 50s |
| Test | 30 | 2,023 | 243 | 77.80 | 8 / 3 |
| ODI | 31 | 1,818 | 154* | 82.63 | 7 / 9 |
| T20I | 10 | 299 | 82 | 37.37 | 0 / 2 |
In addition to the ‘ICC Cricketer of the Year’ and ‘ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year’ Virat Kohli also been named as the captain of the ‘ICC Test Team of the Year’ and the ‘ICC ODI Team of the Year’.
ICC ODI Team of the Year: 1 David Warner, 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 Babar Azam, 5 AB de Villiers, 6, Quinton de Kock (wk), 7 Ben Stokes, 8 Trent Boult, 9 Hasan Ali, 10 Rashid Khan, 11 Jasprit Bumrah.
