Karachi: International Cricket Council has issued the finalized short list of ICC Awards nominees for different categories including ICC Cricketer of the Year, ODI Cricketer of the Year, Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year, Emerging Cricketer of the Year, People’s Choice Award, Umpire of the Year and several others.
It was quite shocking to see Saeed Ajmal been discarded by ICC Awards nominees for ICC Cricketer of the year and player of the year. The prolific right arm spinner, master of Doosra who has 120 International Wickets, the most by any bowler between 4th August 2011 and 6th August 2012 (the period for ICC Awards criteria).
Ajmal also has 72 Test Wickets, again the most by any bowler, during this period. But ICC didn’t even care to put him in nominees and removed his name from the short-list of the categories mentioned above. However, Kumar Sangakkara, Michael Clarke, Hashim Amla and Vernon Philander maintained their names for ICC Cricketer of the year nominees (same for Test).
The decision of discarding Ajmal’s name by the ICC from the honorable category has left people in despair and they call it partiality against the top Pakistani bowler. It is pertinent to mention here that at present Saeed Ajmal is placed at the third spot in both Test and ODI bowler rankings with rating points of 832 and 696, respectively. While, he is also the second ranked bowler in T20 Cricket and discarding such a bowler from ICC nominees list who is currently being placed among top three bowlers in all the three formats of the game is beyond imagination. This is high time for ICC that they must review their selection policy in order to prevent criticism in future.