Pakistan wicket keeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan and women’s cricket team’s Nida Dar have been nominated for the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) T20 international player of the year award.
The ICC issued on Thursday the list of nominees for both male and female cricketers’ categories for the award.
Muhamad Rizwan, ICC T20I player of the year in 2021, is in the run for the award for the second consecutive year.
The right-handed batter scored 996 runs and took nine catches and three stumpings in 25 T20I matches in 2022. He continued his brilliant run from his record-breaking year in T20Is in 2021 and played an anchor role for the Pakistan T20 team. Only Suryakumar Yadav scored more runs than Rizwan in the year in men’s T20Is.
Muhammad Rizwan was the ICC T20I player of the year in 2021. Nida Dar’s stellar 2022 The Pakistani all-rounder scored 396 runs in 16 T20I matches at an average of 56.57 and got 15 wickets. She became the first and the only Pakistan bowler to have claimed 100 T20I wickets and is currently the second-highest wicket-taker in women’s T20Is.
Dar scored three fifty-plus scores this year: an unbeaten fifty at the Commonwealth Games, similar exploits against India at the Asia Cup, and a well-made 61 at home against Ireland in November. Dar was exceptional in the Asia Cup, in which she amassed 145 runs in six matches, at a superb average of 72.50, and also claimed eight wickets at a meager 14.87 runs a piece.
Along with Nida, Indian batter Smriti Mandana, New Zealand’s Sophie Divine, and Aussie Tahlia McGrath have been nominated for the award.
