The International Cricket Council (ICC) has nominated Pakistan’s all-format captain, Babar Azam, for the Men’s ODI Player of the Year award.
According to ICC, Babar earned the nomination based on his vital contributions in the two series that Pakistan played this year.
“He was the second-highest run-scorer with 228 runs and was the Player of the Match in both of Pakistan’s wins in the 2-1 series victory against South Africa. He was the architect of Pakistan’s chase of 274 in the first ODI with a century and laid the foundation with an 82-ball 94 in the final ODI where the visitors posted 320 batting first,” the ICC said in a press release.
Babar was the lone warrior for Pakistan when they were whitewashed by England 3-0. He scored a total of 177 runs in three games but found no support as no other batter managed to score more than 100 runs in the series.
Note that the ICC attracted a lot of criticism on Wednesday after excluding Babar from the nominations for the T20I Player of the Year award. Cricket experts and fans believed that the 25-year-old, who was the top-scorer in the T20 World Cup and the second-highest run-scorer overall this year in T20Is, deserved a nomination in the shortest format.
Other nominees for the award are Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan, South Africa’s Janeman Malan, and Ireland’s Paul Stirling.
The winner will be announced on 24 January 2022.
