CA CEO Hockley congratulates Cummins, Khawaja, Litchfield for clinching ICC Awards honours

Melbourne, Jan 26 (IANS) Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley has congratulated Test and ODI skipper Pat Cummins, left-handed openers Usman Khawaja and Phoebe Litchfield for clinching individual honours in the recently-announced ICC awards.

Cummins claimed the Sir Garfield Sobers Award as the ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year for 2023. He was also named as captain of the ICC Test Team of the Year, capping a remarkable list of achievements in 2023 that included retaining the Ashes and captaining Australia to victories in the World Test Championship and Men's ODI World Cup.

On the other hand, Khawaja was named ICC Men’s Test Cricketer of the Year after scoring 1,210 runs at an average of 52.60 and three centuries. Khawaja was the only batter to score over 1000 Test runs in 2023.

Meanwhile, Phoebe was awarded the ICC Emerging Women's Cricketer of the Year after an impressive first year in women’s ODI cricket, amassing 485 runs in 13 matches at an average of 53.88 and a strike rate of 81.92.

“Congratulations to Pat, Usman and Phoebe on their individual honours at the ICC Awards which are fantastic global recognition for their incredible performances that have contributed to a stellar year for Australian cricket.”

“Pat is the first Australian to be recognised as the men’s ICC Cricketer of the Year since Steve Smith in 2015 and this is richly deserved recognition for both his excellent individual performances and also his captaincy.”

“Usman has had another brilliant year and his runs at the top of the order have been crucial to our success in the Test arena. At 37, he is playing as well as ever, while Phoebe has begun her career in incredible fashion. All three are outstanding players and role models,” said Hockley in a statement.

The ICC Men’s Test team of the Year had other Australia players in Travis Head, Alex Carey and Mitchell Starc. Head and Zampa were also in the ICC Men’s ODI team of the Year, while Ellyse Perry, Beth Mooney, Ashleigh Gardner and Annabel Sutherland found places in the ICC Women’s ODI team of the Year.

Megan Schutt was included in ICC Women’s T20I team of the Year alongside Ellyse, Beth and Ashleigh. "Congratulations to all 16 Australian players that were selected in ICC Team of the Year nominations.”

“To have this number of players included across men's and women's formats shows how fortunate we are to have so many of the world's best players representing Australia. I'd also like to thank our high-performance staff, who do a fantastic job to create the environment for our world-class players to perform at their best," added Hockley.