Sangakkara wins big in ICC awards
Kumar Sangakkara has won three awards, including the prestigious Cricketer of the Year and Test Cricketer of the Year at the annual ICC awards ceremony in Colombo. Sangakkara also won the People's Choice prize, an honour he had received last year as well.
For Cricketer and Test Cricketer of the Year, Sangakkara was chosen ahead of South Africa's Hashim Amla and Vernon Philander, and Australia captain Michael Clarke. He was prolific in both Tests and ODIs during the 12-month voting period ending in early August: in 14 Tests, he compiled 1,444 runs at an average of 60.16, including five centuries and five half-centuries, highlighted by a match-saving 211 against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi; in 37 ODIs, he scored 1457 runs with three hundreds, and also completed 39 catches and three stumpings as a wicketkeeper.
Previous winners of the Cricketer of the Year award include Rahul Dravid (2004), Andrew Flintoff and Jacques Kallis (joint winners in 2005), Ricky Ponting (2006 and 2007), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (2008), Mitchell Johnson (2009), Sachin Tendulkar (2010) and Jonathan Trott (2011).
Sangakkara missed out though on a third major gong when Virat Kohli was named ODI Cricketer of the Year, an award Sangakkara had won in 2011.
Kumar Dharmasena voted Umpire of the Year
Sri Lankan umpire Kumar Dharmasena has won the David Shepherd trophy for the Umpire of the Year at the ICC Awards ceremony in Colombo. It is the first time he has won this award.
The other nominees were five-time winner Simon Taufel, three-time winner Aleem Dar, along with New Zealand's Billy Bowden, England's Richard Kettleborough and Australia's Rodney Tucker.
"This award means a lot to me, after playing cricket for 12 years. It's for the Sri Lankan umpires and the community who looked after my growth," Dharmasena said after accepting his award from Graham Gooch. "Honestly, I feel I had a great year on and off the field and I feel having been a cricketer has helped me with my decision making as an umpire and to give better decisions."
The David Shepherd Trophy for ICC Umpire of the Year was voted on by the 10 current Test captains and the Elite Panel of ICC match referees and is partly based on the umpires' performance statistics.
Dharmasena, who made his international debut as an umpire in 2009, joined the Elite Panel in May 2011. In the voting period he stood in seven Tests and 13 ODIs.
