Quinton de Kock has been crowned the best ODI player in the world.
De Kock is one of four Proteas players to have been selected in the ICC ODI Team of the Year, joined by his teammates AB de Villiers, Kagiso Rabada and Imran Tahir in a selection dominated by South Africans.
South African referee, Marais Erasmus, also walked away with the ICC Umpire of the Year award.
The honours were given based on performances between 14 September 2015 and 20 September 2016.
The 24-year-old had a marvelous year for his country, picking up three centuries and three fifties including the highest ODI score of the year with his 178 against Australia in the first match of a 5-0 whitewash in South Africa.
Besides his total of 857 scored in 17 matches, which ranks him third behind David Warner (1 388) and Steve Smith (1 154), the wicket-keeper batsman managed 16 dismissals, nine behind Matthew Wade in first place who has 25 from 29 matches.
Despite earning the highest honour in the shorter format, De Kock missed out on a place in the ICC Test Team of the Year, with Dale Steyn the only Protea to have made the cut. Some fans may feel that De Kock was unfortunate to lose out to Jonny Bairstow as the wicketkeeper-batsman in the side. Bairstow’s 17-match year ranks him as the second-best batsman with 1 470 at an average of 58.80 including three hundreds and eight fifties. De Kock, after seven matches, has 589 at an average of 65.44 with two centuries and four half-centuries to his name. As a keeper, Bairstow dominates with 70 dismissals to De Kock’s 28, but that is largely due to him paying more than twice the number of matches to the world-beater De Kock is destined to become.
De Kock will look to finish the year strongly with a good performance in the Boxing Day match against Sri Lanka, as he looks to replicate his ODI form in the Test Arena.
See De Kock’s Test century against Australia in Hobart, which helped the Proteas seal a third-consecutive series win Down Under:
Here are the list of ICC award winners for performances between 15 September 2015 and 20 September 2016:
ICC Cricketer of the Year (Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy) – Ravichandran Ashwin (India)
ICC Test Cricketer of the Year – Ravichandran Ashwin (India)
ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year – Quinton de Kock (South Africa)
ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year – Suzie Bates (New Zealand)
ICC Women’s T20I Cricketer of the Year – Suzie Bates (New Zealand)
ICC T20I Performance of the Year – Carlos Brathwaite (West Indies ) (34 not out, 10 balls, 1×4, 4×6, ICC WT20 India 2016 final v England, Kolkata)
ICC Emerging Cricketer of the Year – Mustafizur Rahman (Bangladesh)
ICC Associate/Affiliate Cricketer of the Year – Mohammad Shahzad (Afghanistan)
ICC Spirit of Cricket Award – Misbah-ul-Haq (Pakistan)
ICC Umpire of the Year (David Shepherd Trophy) – Marais Erasmus
Photo: Ryan Wilkisky/BackpagePix
