Hits and misses among the ICC's nominees
A look at the stats of the players who have been shortlisted for the awards, and others who could have made the cut
The period below has been a pretty good one for the top batsmen, with 12 batsmen scoring 750-plus runs at 50-plus averages. (The overall runs per wicket during this period was a middling 32.83, which means these success stories were compensated by other batting failures.) With the 750-run cut-off, Hashim Amla's average of 65.35 is the highest, marginally ahead of Shivnarine Chanderpaul's 65. Chanderpaul doesn't find himself in the Test Cricketer of the Year shortlist, but his performances have found him a place in the Test XI. Not only did Chanderpaul score plenty, most of his runs came against pretty good attacks too: his hundreds were scored in India and against Australia, while he made 87 not out and 91 in England.
Batsman | Tests | Runs | Average | 100s/ 50s |
Hashim Amla | 10 | 915 | 65.35 | 3/ 4 |
Shivnarine Chanderpaul | 11 | 975 | 65.00 | 2/ 6 |
AB de Villiers | 10 | 807 | 62.07 | 1/ 6 |
Kumar Sangakkara | 14 | 1444 | 60.16 | 5/ 5 |
Younis Khan | 12 | 948 | 59.25 | 3/ 3 |
Michael Clarke | 14 | 1355 | 58.91 | 5/ 2 |
Marlon Samuels | 10 | 846 | 56.40 | 2/ 6 |
Graeme Smith | 10 | 820 | 54.67 | 3/ 5 |
Azhar Ali | 12 | 1028 | 54.10 | 4/ 5 |
Mohammad Hafeez | 12 | 1064 | 53.20 | 3/ 4 |
Alastair Cook | 12 | 1005 | 52.89 | 2/ 3 |
Kevin Pietersen | 12 | 953 | 50.15 | 3/ 3 |
Vernon Philander was the obvious choice to make the cut, but Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal had a terrific year too, taking 72 wickets in 12 Tests at 24.29, including two Man-of-the-Match awards. However, he does make the ICC's Test team as the only specialist spinner, ahead of Rangana Herath and Graeme Swann (46 wickets at 31.13). There's little to argue over the fast-bowlers' slots, as Philander, Stuart Broad and Dale Steyn have clearly been the three best ones. James Anderson had a pretty good year too, but his 40 wickets came at an average of 29.02, with only one five-for in 11 Tests.
Bowler | Tests | Wickets | Average | Strike rate | 5WI/ 10WM |
Vernon Philander | 9 | 56 | 16.57 | 33.1 | 6/ 2 |
Stuart Broad | 10 | 47 | 24.10 | 51.9 | 2/ 1 |
Dale Steyn | 10 | 44 | 24.18 | 48.5 | 2/ 0 |
Saeed Ajmal | 12 | 72 | 24.29 | 56.0 | 3/ 1 |
Peter Siddle | 10 | 43 | 24.39 | 47.9 | 1/ 0 |
Abdur Rehman | 9 | 41 | 25.02 | 59.2 | 2/ 0 |
Rangana Herath | 13 | 70 | 25.24 | 60.5 | 6/ 1 |
Kemar Roach | 9 | 42 | 25.59 | 44.9 | 3/ 1 |
The Indians had a terrible year in Test cricket, with none of them scoring 750 runs or taking 40 wickets: Rahul Dravid led the batsmen's list for India with 712 runs, while R Ashwin topped the bowlers' chart with 31 wickets. However, in ODIs, the Indians were dominant, especially in batting. Four Indian batsmen scored more than 750 ODI runs, with two of them, Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni, doing so at stunning averages and strike rates. Those two batsmen clearly deserve to be in the ICC shortlist, while Sangakkara was the second-highest run-getter in the year, with 1457 at an average of almost 43.
Batsman | ODIs | Runs | Average | Strike rate | 100s/ 50s |
MS Dhoni | 25 | 859 | 78.09 | 95.23 | 0/ 8 |
Virat Kohli | 31 | 1733 | 66.65 | 92.77 | 8/ 6 |
Michael Clarke | 19 | 759 | 50.60 | 79.55 | 1/ 5 |
Alastair Cook | 20 | 882 | 46.42 | 86.21 | 3/ 6 |
Kumar Sangakkara | 37 | 1457 | 42.85 | 76.88 | 3/ 9 |
Gautam Gambhir | 25 | 1004 | 41.83 | 84.79 | 2/ 8 |
Laith Malinga was by far the leading wicket-taker during the period under consideration - and seems to have been shortlisted on that basis alone - but Malinga's overall numbers weren't particularly impressive over the last year: he took 62 wickets in 37 matches, but at an average of 27.59, and an economy rate of 5.40 runs per over. In 20 of those 37 matches, he went at five an over or more, and in three of those games his economy rate exceeded eight an over.
Bowler | ODIs | Wickets | Average | Econ rate | Strike rate |
Sunil Narine | 15 | 28 | 18.82 | 3.66 | 30.8 |
Steven Finn | 18 | 35 | 20.94 | 4.47 | 28.0 |
Saeed Ajmal | 23 | 37 | 22.56 | 4.16 | 32.5 |
Clint McKay | 17 | 27 | 23.88 | 4.52 | 31.6 |
Shahid Afridi | 22 | 32 | 26.43 | 4.61 | 34.3 |
Thisara Perera | 23 | 34 | 26.82 | 5.55 | 28.9 |
Brett Lee | 20 | 31 | 27.38 | 5.23 | 31.3 |
Lasith Malinga | 37 | 62 | 27.59 | 5.40 | 30.6 |
S Rajesh is stats editor of ESPNcricinfo. Follow him on Twitter