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ICC Awards 2008

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
Thought the awards were all fairly predictable, didn't pick Dhoni getting ODI player of the year but gathered that Chanderpaul, Steyn, Mendis, Yuvraj and Taufel would be receiving one.

We have to get rid of this Spirit of Cricket award though IMO - its essentially a bonus award for being nice. I'd laugh if they included England on the list of nominees after the ODI series against New Zealand a few months ago.
 

Somerset

Cricketer Of The Year
All pretty sensible, though I am rather surprised that Gibbs was named in the ODI team of the year ahead of McCullum.
I'm not TBH - taking aside the might of Ireland, McCullum is still to score an ODI century...
 

Perm

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
All pretty sensible, though I am rather surprised that Gibbs was named in the ODI team of the year ahead of McCullum.
I thought the same thing for a start too, but I've never been a fan of having two wicket-keepers in the same team - even for a 'fantasy' one like this. Also, on the surface of things it looks as though McCullum was much more impressive than Gibbs during the time frame, but that's far from the truth.

McCullum did some serious minnow-bashing, 365 runs against Bangladesh, Ireland and Scotland and he was only dismissed four times, leaving him with an average of 86 and strike rate of 128! Against ODI-class nations he was still pretty good, with a similar average to Gibbs, but scoring his runs four more balls quicker. Major factor being that McCullum didn't score a century, whereas Gibbs notched 3 of them. Also worth noting that McCullum played England ten times during this period, and also dominated on the small grounds in NZ.
 

Perm

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
ICC Test Team of the Year: Graeme Smith (SA, capt), Virender Sehwag (Ind), Mahela Jayawardena (SL), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI), Kevin Pietersen (Eng), Jacques Kallis (SA), Kumar Sangakkara (SL, wk), Brett Lee (Aus), Ryan Sidebottom (Eng), Dale Steyn (SA), Muttiah Muralitharan (SL). 12th man: Stuart Clark (Aus).

Personally I thought there could have been a couple of other options instead of Pietersen for the Test side, Laxman, de Villiers, Tendulkar and Amla all having good to reasonable cases, de Villiers in particular. Averaged 58 against Test class teams and played two absolutely beautiful innings (217 vs India and 174 vs England). Bit of a shame Tendulkar had such a poor series against Sri Lanka too, otherwise he'd have almost definitely be in the team. Bowling looks very strong though, especially with Kallis averaging 28.

ICC ODI Team of the Year: Hershelle Gibbs (SA), Sachin Tendulkar (Ind), Ricky Ponting (Aus, capt), Younis Khan (Pak), Andrew Symonds (Aus), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Ind, wk), Farveez Maharoof (SL), Daniel Vettori (NZ), Brett Lee (Aus), Mitchell Johnson (Aus), Nathan Bracken (Aus). 12th man: Salman Butt (Pak)

Gautum Gambhir was unlucky to miss out, while Younis Khan's inclusion makes me laugh. It's not that he doesn't deserve it, it's just that he's been such a poor ODI batsman for so long but very few people recognise it, especially within Pakistan. Not convinced Ponting deserved to be there either, over half of his innings in 2008 were single-figure scores, surely Mohammad Yousuf should have been in there ahead of him? Mills or Taylor ahead of Maharoof too, potentially.
 

Xuhaib

International Coach
ICC Test Team of the Year: Graeme Smith (SA, capt), Virender Sehwag (Ind), Mahela Jayawardena (SL), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI), Kevin Pietersen (Eng), Jacques Kallis (SA), Kumar Sangakkara (SL, wk), Brett Lee (Aus), Ryan Sidebottom (Eng), Dale Steyn (SA), Muttiah Muralitharan (SL). 12th man: Stuart Clark (Aus).

Personally I thought there could have been a couple of other options instead of Pietersen for the Test side, Laxman, de Villiers, Tendulkar and Amla all having good to reasonable cases, de Villiers in particular. Averaged 58 against Test class teams and played two absolutely beautiful innings (217 vs India and 174 vs England). Bit of a shame Tendulkar had such a poor series against Sri Lanka too, otherwise he'd have almost definitely be in the team. Bowling looks very strong though, especially with Kallis averaging 28.

ICC ODI Team of the Year: Hershelle Gibbs (SA), Sachin Tendulkar (Ind), Ricky Ponting (Aus, capt), Younis Khan (Pak), Andrew Symonds (Aus), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Ind, wk), Farveez Maharoof (SL), Daniel Vettori (NZ), Brett Lee (Aus), Mitchell Johnson (Aus), Nathan Bracken (Aus). 12th man: Salman Butt (Pak)

Gautum Gambhir was unlucky to miss out, while Younis Khan's inclusion makes me laugh. It's not that he doesn't deserve it, it's just that he's been such a poor ODI batsman for so long but very few people recognise it, especially within Pakistan. Not convinced Ponting deserved to be there either, over half of his innings in 2008 were single-figure scores, surely Mohammad Yousuf should have been in there ahead of him? Mills or Taylor ahead of Maharoof too, potentially.

Younis has had a good last year in ODI's
 

bryce

International Regular
I don't know if he'll ever consistently look that good, mainly because he is the sort of bowler who is trying to bowl a wicket ball every ball - rather than bowling to specific areas/plans, which I think we can partly relate to his lack of success in ODI's. And he did manage to bowl 89 wicket balls in 12 Tests which is fair to say the very least. If sometime he does start looking that good - consistently troubling batsman whilst keeping scoring opportunities to a minimum, then i'm sure we can expect even better results. Having said that sometimes erraticism can work for certain bowlers, these bowlers definately do not make successful ODI bowlers though
 
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Uppercut

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I don't know if he'll ever consistently look that good, mainly because he is the sort of bowler who is trying to bowl a wicket ball every ball - rather than bowling to specific areas/plans, which I think we can partly relate to his lack of success in ODI's. And he did manage to bowl 89 wicket balls in 12 Tests which is fair to say the very least. If sometime he does start looking that good - consistently troubling batsman whilst keeping scoring opportunities to a minimum, then i'm sure we can expect even better results. Having said that sometimes erraticism can work for certain bowlers, these bowlers definately do not make successful ODI bowlers though
He bowls an extremely attacking line, i can't think of anyone who does so quite as much as he does. He tends to try to pitch the ball on leg stump (or even outside it) and swing it past the bat on the offside. Not to mention attempted yorkers and the like. Obviously the end result is a lot of four-balls, a lot of wickets when he bowls well and a ridiculous strike-rate.
 

Top_Cat

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He bowls an extremely attacking line, i can't think of anyone who does so quite as much as he does. He tends to try to pitch the ball on leg stump (or even outside it) and swing it past the bat on the offside. Not to mention attempted yorkers and the like. Obviously the end result is a lot of four-balls, a lot of wickets when he bowls well and a ridiculous strike-rate.
Yep, it's fantastic to watch and exactly what he should be doing; let the line bowling be done by the other donkeys, it's rare that we have a genuine fast swing bowler around these days.
 

duffer

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Just watching it now, this spirit of cricket malarkey is really cringeworthy. Asking Ricky how his side have maintained the spirit of the game over the year is lolerrific.
 

duffer

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Ishant collecting Dhoni's ODI player of the year award and the subsequent interview is pure incredible. :laugh:
 

Uppercut

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Yeah, just can't help but wonder how his ODI career will pan out..
He shouldn't be in the team, in short. I'm a big fan of him but really, no. The only reason he keeps getting picked is that they know he can win them any game with four or five wickets in the powerplays- much like Herschelle Gibbs retains his selection- there's a feeling that the one big performance is just around the corner.
 

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