Sachin Tendulkar has won the ICC Player of the Year award at the ICC awards night
at Bangalore on Wednesday. This is the first time that the Little Master Sachin Tendulkar has won the award since the awards were first given away in 2004.
Previously, the only other Indian to have won this award was Rahul Dravid. Ricky
Ponting has won this award twice. Amongst the other awards, Virender Sehwag
of India won the award for being the best Test cricketer in the previous year,
while AB de Villiers won the award for the best ODI player. Tendulkar also won
the award for the fans' choice.
Tendulkar was a visibly happy man and credited the resurgence of the team to
the coach Gary Kirsten. He said that the coach had worked really hard
with the boys and that was the reason why the Indians had been able to win so
many games. In the last 12 months, India has not lost a single Test series,
a record that dates back to the start of the 2008, when the last series was
lost by the Indians. Tendulkar also said that the entire season had been special
given that they had won many a series in the entire period.
Some of the other players in the contention for the awards were the likes of
Graeme Swann, Sehwag and Hashim Amla but Tendulkar's records were enough
to take him to the top. In the ODI variety of the game, Tendulkar had scored
more than 900 runs at an average of 65 while in the Test matches, Tendulkar's
scores were even better - he made 1064 at a near-82 average. Not only this,
but Tendulkar also made the first ever double century in the ODI variety, beating
a record held by Saeed Anwar.
Amongst some of the other achievements, the panel named Mahendra Singh Dhoni
as the captain of the Test team of the year, that also had Sehwag and Tendulkar
in the line-up. The ODI team was led by Ricky Ponting and had the likes of Tendulkar
and Shane Watson in the playing eleven. No Indian bowler made it to any of the
lists.
In the T20 format, the New Zealand wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum won
the award for the best ever innings this year, when he smashed a 116 against
Australia, while Dutch player Ryan ten Doeschate won the Associate Player of
the Year award.
Aleem Dar was declared the best umpire in the 2009-10 period.
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