Amla, Kallis lead nominations for SA cricket awards

Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis lead the nominations for this year's SA cricket awards, with three nominations each. The awards celebrate the achievements of South African cricketers over the last season. They will be presented at a gala dinner on June 7.

In the last season, South Africa played against Zimbabwe in a one-day series, against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates, India at home and in the World Cup, where they were knocked out in the quarter-finals.

Amla has been nominated for the Test and one-day cricketer of the year awards as well as the overall cricketer of the year. In five Tests in the 2010-11 season, Amla averaged 64.25 and scored two centuries. He was equally impressive in the limited-overs format, averaging 60.61 and scoring five centuries in the 20 ODIs he played. Amla swept the awards last year, winning in all five categories he was nominated in.

Kallis scored 821 runs in five Tests in 2010-11, at an average of 136.83, including his first Test double-century. He also scored four other hundreds in the season, two of which came in the third Test against India in Cape Town in January. That performance has earned him the only nomination for the KFC so good award. He was slightly less prolific in one-dayers, averaging 38.90 in 11 matches, without scoring a hundred. He also took 10 wickets at an average of 24.50 in ODIs. Kallis previously won the cricketer of the year award in 2004.

Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and AB de Villiers have also been nominated for the cricketer of the year award. The pace pair excelled with the new ball in all formats while de Villiers averaged 72.71 in Test cricket, 56.68 in ODIs and was given the added responsibility of keeping wickets in the limited-overs formats. Lonwabo Tsotsobe, who emerged as the third prong in South Africa's pace attack, has been nominated in the ODI and T20 cricketer of the year categories.

On the domestic front, Jacques Rudolph, who topped the SuperSport series batting charts and Vernon Philander, who was the leading wicket-taker in first-class cricket, have been nominated for awards. Imran Tahir, who became eligible to play for South Africa last season, led the SuperSport series wicket-takers list until his international call up and has also been nominated for two awards.

Retired international fast bowler Makhaya Ntini and England international Owais Shah are up against Albie Morkel for the Pro20 Cricketer of the year award.