Suryakumar, Mandhana nominated for T20I cricketer of the Year

India's star batters Suryakumar Yadav and Smriti Mandhana have been nominated for the Men's and Women’s T20I Cricketer of 2022 award by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday.

The swashbuckling Surya has been nominated along with England’s Sam Curran, Zimbabwe’s Sikandar Raza and Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan for the coveted award.

While Indian women's cricket opener Mandhana is in race for the award with Pakistan’s Nida Dar, Australia’s Tahlia McGrath and New Zealand’s Sophie Divine.

Suryakumar had a sensational 2022, becoming just the second batter to score more than 1000 runs in a year in the shortest format. He ended the year as the highest run-getter, scoring 1164 runs at a ridiculous strike rate of 187.43.

His tally of 68 sixes in the calendar year in T20Is is the most by anyone. Yadav's incredible consistency in the format is reflected in his average which stood in the mid-40s. With two hundreds and nine half-centuries in the year, Yadav was the standout men's T20I batter.

In the ICC Men's T20 World Cup in Australia, SKY recorded three fifties in six innings, averaging nearly 60 in the tournament while going at a strike rate of 189.68.

He continued his stellar year after the tournament too, recording his second hundred in T20Is in the year in the bilateral series in New Zealand. The year also saw Yadav become the top-ranked ICC Men's T20I Player Rankings, achieving a career-high 890 rating points.

Mandhana has been nominated in the same category for a second year in a row. Consistent Mandhana had a superb 2022, scoring 594 runs in 23 matches with five half-centuries.

From smashing the quickest fifty by an India woman (off just 23 balls) to breaching the 2500-run mark in T20Is, Mandhana enjoyed a good run this year, leaving her mark on the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the Women's T20 Asia Cup in Bangladesh, and a memorable five-match T20I home series against Australia towards the business end of a fruitful year.