Kohli, Jadeja to vie for Sobers Trophy; Ashwin in race for ICC Test Cricketer of Year
Dubai, Jan 5: Star batter Virat Kohli and premier all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja will vie for the ICC Men's Cricketer of the Year award, while ace off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin will be in the race for the Test Cricketer of the Year.
Kohli and Jadeja will have to contest for the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy against Australian captain Pat Cummins and his team-mate Travis Head.
Ashwin will face competition from Head and his Australia teammate Usman Khawaja along with England senior batsman Joe Root, the ICC said on Friday.
Kohli made 2048 runs in 35 matches across Tests and ODIs in 2023, including the 50th one-day hundred to go past the iconic Sachin Tendulkar during the World Cup.
Jadeja amassed 613 runs and 66 wickets in 35 matches and the numbers contained his 22-wicket haul against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy early the previous year.
Cummins garnered 422 runs and 59 wickets in 24 matches and has also led the Australians to wins in the Ashes, WTC Final and in the ODI World Cup.
Head was in roaring form with the bat in 2023, evidenced by the 1698 runs in 31 matches that included hundreds in the WTC Final and the ODI World Cup final, and both the knocks were produced against India.
Meanwhile, Ashwin ended the year as the top Test bowler in the ICC Rankings, taking 41 wickets at a striking average of 17.02 and recording the most five-wicket hauls by anyone in Tests -- four.
Root was at the forefront of England's success in Test cricket last year. He registered 787 runs in eight Tests, finishing the year with a strong average of 65.58.
Australia opener Khawaja topped the run-scoring charts in the longest format last year, amassing 1210 runs at an average of 52.60, which included three centuries.
Nominees for the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy for ICC Women's Cricketer of the Year: Chamari Athapaththu (Sri Lanka), Ashleigh Gardner (Australia), Beth Mooney (Australia), Nat Sciver-Brunt (England).
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Rahul on compromised mission, has links with pro-Pak elements: Nitin Nabin
Patna (PTI): BJP president Nitin Nabin on Wednesday launched a blistering attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of undertaking foreign visits without informing central security agencies, and having close links with “anti-India and pro-Pakistan” elements.
Nabin charged Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition, with being on a “compromised mission” that began with his great grandfather and first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and “continued through generations”.
The BJP president’s comments come amid a row over the Indian Youth Congress activists staging a shirtless protest at the AI Summit in Delhi last week, with the slogan “PM is compromised”, an allusion to the proposed trade deal with the US allegedly under pressure from the Donald Trump administration
“Today, I wish to expose the compromised mission of the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has traded national interests for personal gains. I wish to expose Rahul Gandhi, who is trutting about like a babbar sher (lion),” the 45-year-old Bihar MLA, who was made the BJP president a month ago, told reporters.
Nabin raked up Nehru’s alleged reference to the country’s burgeoning population as a “liability” and the defeat in the 1962 war with China, and charged Indira Gandhi with “giving up Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, after defeating Pakistan in 1971” as examples of the “compromised mission”.
He also alleged that Rajiv Gandhi, the father of Rahul and a former Prime Minister, had made use of the Bofors gun deal to “fatten up his personal bank balance”.
“The compromised mission continued under Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi, who functioned as a ‘super prime minister’ from 2004 to 2014, compromising the authority of the top constitutional post,” the BJP president asserted.
Nabin slammed Rahul Gandhi for “undertaking 247 foreign visits, without informing security agencies back home”.
“All this has been a part of Rahul Gandhi’s compromised mission,” said Nabin who also accused the Rae Bareli MP of having close links with “anti-India, pro-Pakistan and China” elements abroad, including billionaire George Soros, US Congress member Ilhan Omar and Kenyan financier Shakir Merali.
“Rahul Gandhi is a poster boy of negative politics. But the people of the country, especially the youth, have seen through his game and they will not be misled by his rhetoric,” Nabin added.
