Kohli, Dhoni, Ponting highlight India-Australia domination in ICC Awards history

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With the ICC Awards completing its 16th year, an analysis of previous winners shows that Indians and Australians have dominated the global event - a fact that is also reflected in the teams' on-field results.

 

 

 

 

 

The highly anticipated annual ICC Awards were announced on Wednesday with the likes of Ben Stokes, Pat Cummins, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma walking away with the top awards. England's Stokes was awarded the prestigious Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for his all-round heroics during his team's title-winning World Cup 2019 campaign followed by his red-ball exploits during the subsequent Ashes and the South Africa series. On the other hand, Rohit and Cummins were rewarded for their stupendous year-ending numbers in ODIs and Tests respectively.

Since the ICC Awards were first initiated in 2004, Indians have dominated the overall winners' list with Australian and English cricketers following close behind. As the dust settles down on the latest edition of awards, here are a few highlights from the annual global event which prove this notion beyond doubt:

9/11: It almost seems ironic to talk about India as a dominant ODI force hours after Virat Kohli and Co.'s   in Mumbai on Tuesday. But the ICC Awards history provides ample proof that India have been blessed with some of the best cricketing minds when it comes to leading an ODI team. With the legendary MS Dhoni earlier and Virat Kohli now, India have consistently evolved into a great ODI unit, even though the recent failures at winning ICC tournaments might suggest otherwise.

It is now 9 times out of the past 11 years, that the ICC have chosen an  of the Year. Ricky Ponting (2010) and AB de Villiers (2015) are the only non-Indians designated as ODI captains of the global year-ending team of the year as Dhoni and Kohli have ruled the roost. Dhoni holds the current record with the distinction of leading the ICC ODI team of the year for a maximum of 5 times with Ponting and Kohli following close behind (4 each).ADVERTISEMEN

Kohli's hat-trick: Indians also dominate the list of ICC Test captains of the year with a total of 6 such accolades since 2004. With the 2019 ICC Awards, Indian skipper Virat Kohli now holds a unique hat-trick of being named the captain of the ICC Test team for 3 years in succession. Though former England captain Alastair Cook and legendary Australian skipper Ricky Ponting have also been showered with this accolade thrice in their careers like Kohli, unlike the Indian captain, they never made it 3 years in a row. In combination with Dhoni (2009, 2010) and Rahul Dravid (2006), Indians dominate this particular list just like the ODI one.

Kohli+Rohit >> ABD+QDK: Rohit Sharma was named the ICC ODI player of the year 2019 making it a hat-trick of such titles for India. Overall, Indians dominate this list too with Dhoni (2008, 2009), Kohli (2012, 2017, 2018) having already combined to share 5 awards among themselves. Kohli is currently tied with his Royal Challengers Bangalore teammate AB de Villiers with a maximum of 3 such awards. Quinton de Kock's 2016 award means that South Africa are on the 2nd spot behind India in the overall winners' list in this category.