ICC Awards boast the best of past and present talent in Sydney on Tuesday

The recipients of the ICC Awards will not be the only stars on show at Sydney's Four Seasons Hotel on Tuesday 11 October because the list of cricketing legends presenting those awards includes some true greats of the game.

Those legends include India's Sunil Gavaskar, Richie Benaud of Australia, Waqar Younis of Pakistan, the West Indies' Michael Holding and Barry Richards of South Africa.

Current player Rahul Dravid of India, the winner of the 2004 Awards for Test Player of the Year and Player of the Year, will also present an award, as will ICC President Ehsan Mani and Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Speed.

Between them, the current and ex-players handing over the trophies to this year's winners can boast more than 400 Test caps and over 450 ODI appearances.

They have scored more than 22,000 Test runs with 59 hundreds and taken over 850 Test wickets; and at ODI level they have captured more than 550 wickets and scored over 12,500 runs.

At first-class level their combined figures are mind-boggling. Between them they have scored more than 88,000 runs, taken over 2500 wickets and scored 229 hundreds.

Umpire of the Year - ICC Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Speed

Emerging Player of the Year - Waqar Younis, the former Pakistan captain and fast bowler and a member of the ICC Awards' 50-member voting Academy

Spirit of Cricket Award - ICC President Ehsan Mani

ODI Player of the Year - Sunil Gavaskar, the former India captain and opening batsman, member of the ICC Awards' 50-member voting Academy and Chairman of the five-man selection panel that chose the Test and ODI Team of the Year

ODI Team of the Year - Barry Richards, the former South Africa batsman and a member of the ICC Awards' 50-member voting Academy

Test Player of the Year - Rahul Dravid, last year's recipient of the Award and a member of the ICC's World XI Test and ODI squads against Australia for the Johnnie Walker Super Series

Test Team of the Year - Michael Holding, the former West Indies captain and fast bowler and a member of the ICC Awards' 50-member voting Academy

Player of the Year - Richie Benaud, the former Australia captain, leg-spinning all-rounder and distinguished broadcaster, a member of the ICC Awards' 50-member voting Academy and Chairman of the Selection Panel that chose the Test and ODI Teams of the Year in 2004

Other former star players attending include Mark Taylor and Rodney Marsh of Australia, Tony Greig and Michael Atherton of England, Aravinda de Silva of Sri Lanka, India's Sanjay Manjrekar and the recently-retired captain of the Australia women's team Belinda Clark. Robin Marlar, the president of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 2005-06, is also set to attend.

Thanks to Sony Entertainment Television (SET Max), the ICC's official host broadcaster of the Awards, coverage of the event will be seen all over the world.

SET Max will provide exclusive coverage in India and the Awards will also be shown by the Caribbean Media Corporation, TEN Sports (in the Middle East and Pakistan), Sky Sports (in the UK), SKY TV in New Zealand, SuperSport in Africa, Fiji TV (covering the Pacific Islands) and on Fox Sports in Australia and in the Middle East.

Additionally, SN-TV will have news access and ND-TV has rights as the official news partner for the event and will have exclusive news coverage in India.

Three of the broadcasters receiving the telecast - TEN Sports, Fiji TV and SKY TV in New Zealand - will be showing the ICC Awards for the first time.

The four individual player awards - Emerging Player of the Year, One-Day International Player of the Year, Test Player of the Year and Player of the Year are all judged by the same process.

This is summarised in five steps below, and explained in further detail in the following paragraphs:

The ICC appointed a five-person Selection Panel for the ICC Awards comprising Sunil Gavaskar (Chairman), David Gower, Sir Richard Hadlee, Rod Marsh and Courtney Walsh.

Using their expert opinion, judgment and knowledge, this five-man ICC Awards Selection Panel prepared a long-list of nominees within each of the four individual player categories.

The selection of nominees was based on the players' performances during the voting period of 1 August 2004 to 31 July 2005.

The list of nominees was then submitted to the ICC Awards voting Academy.

Comprising 50 members, the voting Academy was specifically established by the ICC to include at least two representatives from each of the ICC's 10 Full Member countries.

This ensures that the Academy has an equal and fair international representation.

The full 50-member voting Academy comprises:

The 25 `legends and media' group were invited by the ICC to join the voting Academy.

Each of the 50 members in the voting Academy cast a 3-2-1 vote in each of the four player categories (3 votes is the greater vote value).

All voting will be monitored, totalled and monitored by Ernst & Young, and the winners announced at the official function.

The Player of the Year will be the cricketer who receives the highest number of combined votes from Test and One-Day International cricket.

Aftab Ahmed (Bangladesh)
Ian Bell (England)
Dinesh Karthik (India)
Kevin Pietersen (England)
AB De Villiers (South Africa)

Andrew Flintoff (England)
Adam Gilchrist (Australia)
Brett Lee (Australia)
Kevin Pietersen (England)
Andrew Symonds (Australia)

Adam Gilchrist (Australia)
Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pakistan)
Jacques Kallis (South Africa)
Glenn McGrath (Australia)
Shane Warne (Australia)

Andrew Flintoff (England)
Adam Gilchrist (Australia)
Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pakistan)
Jacques Kallis (South Africa)
Glenn McGrath (Australia)

The two team awards - One-Day International Team of the Year and World XI Test Team of the Year - were chosen in a different manner to the individual awards.

Each of the World XI Team of the Year sides is made up of the world's best 11 individual players, chosen from the ICC's 10 Full Member countries.

The teams are a collection of the best individual players, rather than one national team.

The five-person ICC Awards Selection Panel of Gavaskar, Gower, Hadlee, Marsh and Walsh convened to select the 11 players in each team.

The remit for the Selection Panel was to choose, based on their combined expert opinion, judgment and knowledge, a well balanced team capable of playing an international Test or One-Day international match.

Selection was specifically based on the performance and contribution of each individual player over the course of the voting period, from 1 August 2004 to 31 July 2005.

In choosing the 11 players, the ICC Awards Selection Panel also nominated a captain to lead the side from amongst this group of 11 players.

The named team will be listed in official batting order.

This award will be presented to one umpire from the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Umpires.

Each of the ICC's 10 Full member captains and the seven members of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Referees (the seven members on the panel during the voting period) cast a single vote for their choice of umpire.

The 17 individual votes will be tallied and the umpire with the highest number of votes will be declared the winner.

This award will be presented to a team from one of the ICC's Full Member nations.

Each of the ICC's 10 Full member captains, the eight members of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Umpires and the seven members of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Referees (all those on the panel during the voting period) cast a single vote for their choice of team that best exemplified the Spirit of Cricket during the voting period.

The 25 individual votes will be tallied and the team with the highest number of votes will be declared the winner.