The ICC Awards for the year 2008 was presented yesterday. Two Indians where hounored and made the country proud . It was the Indian Captain (M.S.Dhoni) and His deputy (Yuvraj Singh) both there were awarded ODI player of the Year and Twenty20 International Performance of the Year respectively.
Dhoni has made 1,298 runs in 39 ODIs @ an average of 49.92 and with a strike rate of 82.46 with one century and nine fifties. As an wicket keeper he dismissed 62 players of which 46 were dismissed by catches and other 16 were stumpings. To add to glory he is now the number one player as of the ICC rankings. Dhoni also featured in the ODI Team of the year and has only Sachin Tendulkar as other fellow indian in the team.
Meanwhile Yuvraj said "For me, it was very important just to get nominated, ", he continued “After the fifth six in that over I remember having butterflies in my stomach and I knew that if I managed to hit it for six it would be very special. It was a great feeling when I saw the ball go over the boundary.”
There where also other people winning awards as the list below,
The awards: Cricketer of the Year: Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI); Test Player of the Year: Dale Steyn (RSA); ODI Player of the Year: Mahendra Singh Doni (Ind); Emerging Player of the Year: Ajantha Mendis (SL); T20 International Performance of the Year: Yuvraj Singh (Ind); Associate Player of the Year: Ryan ten Doeschate (Ned); Women’s Cricketer of the Year: Charlotte Edwards (Eng); Umpire of the Year: Simon Taufel (Aus).
Spirit of Cricket: Sri Lanka.
ICC Test Team of the Year: Graeme Smith (RSA, capt), Virender Sehwag (Ind), Mahela Jayawardene (SL), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI), Kevin Pietersen (Eng), Jacques Kallis (RSA), Kumar Sangakkara (SL), Brett Lee (Aus), Ryan Sidebottom (Eng), Dale Steyn (RSA), Muttiah Muralitharan (SL). 12th man: Stuart Clark (Aus)
ICC ODI Team of the Year: Herschelle Gibbs (RSA), Sachin Tendulkar (Ind), Ricky Ponting (Aus, capt), Younis Khan (Pak), Andrew Symonds (Aus), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Ind, wk), Farveez Maharoof (SL), Daniel Vettori (Nzl), Brett Lee (Aus), Mitchell Johnson (Aus), Nathan Bracken (Aus). 12th man: Salman Butt (Pak).