The big news: Ashwin is the man to beat
Indian all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin bagged the International Cricket Council Player of Year award for 2016. Ashwin finished the year as the top-ranked Test bowler, achieving the feat for the second consecutive year. Ashwin bagged 48 wickets and scored 336 runs in eight Tests between September 2015 and September 2016, while also claiming 27 wickets in 19 Twenty20 Internationals.
Ashwin was also adjudged the Test Cricketer of the Year 2016, making him only the second Indian player after Rahul Dravid to win both the titles.
Other top stories
- Former England skipper Michael Vaughan feels that Alastair Cook will quit as England captain. “His body language over the last three matches was one where he looks like he might be thinking of calling it a day,” Vaughan said.
- Surrey have re-signed Australia opening batsman Aaron Finch for next summer’s T20 Blast. Finch scored 259 runs in six appearances for Surrey in 2016, including three half-centuries.
- Indian Test skipper Virat Kohli’s exclusion from the yearly Test XI sparked an outrage on Twitter. However, his exclusion was justified because only matches played from September 14, 2015, to September 20, 2016 were taken into account, in which Kohli scored 451 runs in eight matches.
- Melbourne Renegades defeated Sydney Thunder by 49 runs in the Big Bash League. The Renegades, who batted first, posted a total of 179, led by a smashing half-century by skipper Aaron Finch.
- South African coach Russell Domingo said he wanted his newer Test players to cement their places in the team during the upcoming series against Sri Lanka. However, AB de Villiers’s absence did hinder the squad. De Villiers will miss his third successive Test series with an elbow injury, but Domingo was confident he would slot straight back in when fully fit.