India skipper Virat Kohli and spinner Ravichandran Ashwin have been nominated for the ICC Player of the Decade Award. Along with Kohli and Ashwin, Joe Root (England), Kane Williamson (New Zealand), Steve Smith (Australia), AB de Villiers (South Africa), and Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka) have also been nominated for this accolade.
For ODI Player of the Decade, Kohli, Lasith Malinga (Sri Lanka), Mitchell Starc (Australia), de Villiers, Rohit Sharma (India), MS Dhoni (India), and Sangakkara have been nominated. The full list of nominations was announced on the official website of ICC and the winners will be decided on the basis of the number of votes a player receives.
For ICC Women's Player of the Decade, Ellyse Perry (Australia), Meg Lanning (Australia), Suzie Bates (New Zealand), Stafanie Taylor (West Indies), Mithali Raj (India), Sarah Taylor (England) have been nominated.
Kohli, Root, Williamson, Smith, James Anderson (England), Rangana Herath (Sri Lanka), and Yasir Shah (Pakistan) have been nominated for the Test Player of the Decade award.
For ODI Player of the Decade, Kohli, Lasith Malinga (Sri Lanka), Mitchell Starc (Australia), de Villiers, Rohit Sharma (India), MS Dhoni (India), and Sangakkara have been nominated.
Rashid Khan (Afghanistan), Kohli, Imran Tahir (South Africa), Aaron Finch (Australia), Malinga, Chris Gayle (West Indies), and Rohit Sharma (India) have been nominated for the Men's T20I Player of the Decade.
For Women's T20I Player of the Decade, Lanning, Sophie Devine, Ellyse Perry, Deandra Dottin, Alyssa Healy, and Anya Shrubsole have been nominated.
While, Lanning, Perry, Mithali Raj, Suzie Bates (New Zealand), Stafanie Taylor (West Indies), and Jhulan Goswami (India) have been shortlisted for the ICC Women's ODI Player of the Decade.
For ICC Spirit of Cricket Award of the Decade, Kohli, Williamson, Brendon McCullum (New Zealand), Misbah-ul-Haq (Pakistan), MS Dhoni, Anya Shrubsole (England), Katherine Brunt (England), Mahela Jayawardene (Sri Lanka), and Daniel Vettori (New Zealand) have been shortlisted.
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Kohli - most popular cricketer
Virat Kohli is the most popular cricketer in the world after new research revealed the extend of the India captain's popularity during the recently concluded IPL. Cricket Bet India's research reveals that the 31-year-old has been searched for online an average of 797,000 times a month over the past year, making him by far the most popular cricket in the world. Using data and analysing all 160 players to play in the IPL in 2020, Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya are the most popular cricketers, ahead of stars such as Steve Smith, David Warner and Ben Stokes, who all feature in the top 10 list. Sanju Samson and Rishabh Pant attracted more global searches for their names online than RCB favourite AB de Villiers, while Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal were also very popular.
