Sangakkara Wins Three At ICC Awards

Sangakkara Wins Three At ICC Awards

Kumar Sangakkara poses for the cameras with his three trophies.

©REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte. Picture Supplied by Action Images

Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara was the big winner at the annual ICC awards night held in Colombo. He picked up the main award of Cricketer of the year alongside the Test Cricketer of the year and People's Choice Award gongs.

Sangakkara scored more than 1400 runs in both Tests and One-Day Internationals for Sri Lanka during the qualifying period from August 2011 to August 2012, as well as completing 42 dismissals as wicket-keeper in the latter format. He succeeds last year's winner Jonathan Trott, with previous winners including Andrew Flintoff, Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting.

He said, "This is an amazing honour and I've seen the people who have won it before me and the nominees too, to be named alongside them is wonderful. I admire them greatly and even more so when I looked up at their records on the screen this evening. It's great to be amongst them but now to receive this honour this evening, is simply fantastic."

Virat Kohli picked up the other major award - that of ODI Cricketer of the year - while Stafanie and Sarah Taylor picked up one of the women's awards each. Other winners on the night were Kumar Dharmasena as Umpire of the year; George Dockrell as Associate Cricketer of the year; and Sunil Narine as Emerging Cricketer of the year.

Dan Vettori won the Spirit of Cricket Award for the part that he played in withdrawing New Zealand's appeal for a run-out during a Test match against Zimbabwe last year. Vettori impeded the non-striker Malcolm Waller in his follow-through and immediately held up his hand to wicket-keeper Reece Young to tell him to not take off the bails.

Full list of Award winners:
Cricketer of the year: Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)
Test Cricketer of the year: Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)
ODI Cricketer of the year: Virat Kohli (India)
People's Choice Award: Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)
Women's ODI Cricketer of the year: Stafanie Taylor (West Indies)
Women's T20I Cricketer of the year: Sarah Taylor (England)
Umpire of the year: Kumar Dhamasena (Sri Lanka)
T20I Performance of the year: Richard Levi (117 no for South Africa v New Zealand)
Associate Cricketer of the year: George Dockrell (Ireland)
Spirit of Cricket Award: Dan Vettori (New Zealand)
Emerging Cricketer of the year: Sunil Narine (West Indies)