Pat Cummins won the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year for leading Australia to the World Test Championship and the ODI World Cup titles, apart from helping the team to retain the Ashes. He staved off competition from team-mate Travis Head and India’s Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja to run away with the top honour.
Cummins showed his worth throughout the year with bat and ball. He was the second-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket with 42 scalps, and capped off the year with his second ten-for in Tests. With bat, his unbeaten 44 in the first Ashes Test gave Australia a two-wicket win.
England allrounder Nat Sciver-Brunt – who shone across formats, including in the women’s Ashes – won the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Award for the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year for the second time in a row. She overcame stiff competition from Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu and Australia’s Ashleigh Gardner and Beth Mooney.
Kohli, Athapaththu named ODI cricketers of the year
An exceptional year in ODIs where he showed glimpses of being his old self saw Virat Kohli named as the men’s ODI cricketer of the year. He scored 1377 runs in ODIs in 2023, which included a tally of 765 in the World Cup alone. It was the most any batter had scored at a men’s World Cup, and he crossed fifty in nine of the 11 innings in the competition. He finished the competition with an average of 95.62 and a strike rate of 90.31, becoming the first man to fifty ODI hundreds in the process.
Chamari Athapaththu, meanwhile, was at the fore of Sri Lanka’s first bilateral win over New Zealand, leading the way with bat. She scored two centuries in successful chases in the three-match ODI series. In the series-deciding final game, she struck an unbeaten 140 after Sri Lanka found themselves at 4 for 2 in the first four overs, chasing 196. She attacked her way to a 31-ball fifty and a 60-ball century – the fastest for Sri Lanka in women’s ODIs.
Suryakumar Yadav named men’s T20I cricketer of the year
A stellar 2023 where he finished as the highest run-scorer in T20Is among Full Member nations has seen Suryakumar Yadav bag the men’s T20I cricketer of the year award for the second year running. He beat fellow competitors Sikandar Raza, Alpesh Ramjani and Mark Chapman to take the award home.
Suryakumar started the year scoring just 7 against Sri Lanka but followed it up with scores of 51 (36) and 112 not out (51) in the next two matches. The middle-order batter went from strength to strength in the format thereon. In all, he played 17 T20I innings in 2023, recording 733 runs at 48.86 which included five half-centuries and two hundreds. More importantly, amidst the carnage, he maintained a strike rate of 155.95.
The 31-year-old finished 2023 on a high note with a 56-ball 100 against South Africa. With Rohit Sharma opting out and Hardik Pandya injured, Suryakumar was also handed the captaincy of the Indian T20I side. He gave a good account of himself taking India to a 4-1 series win against Australia at home before drawing a three-match series against South Africa 1-1.
Khawaja Test cricketer of the year; Ravindra and Litchfield emerging players of the year
Usman Khawaja edged out Travis Head, R Ashwin and Joe Root to be crowned the Test cricketer of the year. He was the only one batter to score more than 1000 runs in the year; he amassed 1210 in 13 Tests, including a career-best of 195 not out against South Africa. He showed his mettle in spin-friendly conditions in India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, topping the charts with 333 runs including a century and two fifties, in four games. He was also the leading run-scorer in the Ashes with a tally of 496.
A truly breakthrough year where he lit up the 2023 ODI World Cup has resulted in New Zealand batter Rachin Ravindra winning the men’s emerging player of the year award. He overcame challenges from South Africa fast bowler Gerald Coetzee, Sri Lanka quick Dilshan Madushanka and India batter Yashasvi Jaiswal. Having made his 50-over debut against Sri Lanka in March, Ravindra played 25 ODIs in 2023, scoring 820 runs at an average of 41.00 while also picking 18 wickets at 46.61. Ravindra had a sensational time of it opening the batting for New Zealand as he amassed 578 runs in ten innings at 64.22.
Hayley Matthews crowned women’s T20I cricketer of the year
West Indies captain Hayley Matthews capped off an excellent year by taking home the women’s T20I cricketer of the year award, overcoming stiff competition from Australia’s Ellyse Perry, England’s Sophie Ecclestone, and Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu.
No other batter had more runs than Matthews’ 700 in 14 innings at an average of 63.63. She also picked up 19 wickets at 16.21. Matthews had a particularly stunning tour of Australia in October 2023 where she finished the three-match T20I series with scores of 99*, 132 and 79. Her tally of 310 runs is the most by any player in a women’s T20I bilateral series.
Matthews is the second West Indies player to bag the award after Stafanie Taylor in 2015.
De Leede wins men’s associate cricketer of the year
A key component behind Netherlands qualifying for the main draw of the 2023 ODI World Cup, Bas de Leede has been named the men’s associate cricketer of the year. The allrounder finished the year with 31 wickets in 16 ODIs at 28.26 while also scoring 424 runs at 28.26 with one fifty and one hundred.
In one of the most talked-about all-round performances of the year, de Leede picked 5 for 52 against Scotland in a World Cup qualifier game and then backed it up with a 92-ball 123 to almost single-handedly take Netherlands into the final.
Meanwhile, Kenyan allrounder Queentor Abel has been crowned the women’s associate cricketer of the year. Abel scored 476 runs in 17 T20Is at 34.00 in 2023 with a top score of 109 against Lesotho. She also picked 30 wickets with an average of 7.36 and an economy of 3.81.
Teams of the year
The 2023 ODI World Cup runner-up India dominated the ODI team of the year released by ICC. Rohit Sharma was named captain of the side which had as many as six Indians in the XI. The Australians meanwhile hogged the limelight in ICC’s Test team of the year. The WTC champions had five members in the XI with Pat Cummins leading the side.
Chamari Athapaththu was named captain of the women’s ODI team of the year which had five Australians in the mix. No Indian found a place in the ICC’s women’s team of the year. Athapaththu was also named captain of the women’s T20I team of the year.
Test team of the year: Usman Khawaja, Dimuth Karunaratne, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, Travis Head, Ravindra Jadeja, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins (capt), R Ashwin, Mitchell Starc, Stuart Broad
ODI team of the year: Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill, Travis Head, Virat Kohli, Daryl Mitchell, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Marco Jansen, Adam Zampa, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami
T20I team of the year: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Phil Salt, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Mark Chapman, Sikandar Raza, Alpesh Ramjani, Mark Adair, Ravi Bishnoi, Richard Ngarava, Arshdeep Singh
Women’s ODI team of the year: Chamari Athapaththu, Phoebe Litchfield, Ellyse Perry, Beth Mooney (wk), Nat Sciver-Brunt, Ashleigh Gardner, Annabel Sutherland, Nadine de Klerk, Le Tahuhu, Nahida Akter
Women’s T20I team of the year: Chamari Athapaththu (capt), Beth Mooney (wk), Laura Wolvaardt, Hayley Matthews, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Amelia Kerr, Ellyse Perry, Ashleigh Gardner, Deepti Sharma, Sophie Ecclestone, Megan Schutt
