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ICC Awards: 4 cricketers who could win ODI player of the decade

Every year, ICC comes up with the player of the year awards in different categories. However, now at the end of the 2010s, the game’s governing body has come up with its nominations for the player of the decade awards for the test, ODI and T20s.

The nominations have been made in 4 mainstream categories – player of the decade, Test player of the decade, ODI player of the decade and T20I player of the decade.

Today we will discuss 4 players who are the strong contenders to win the ICC ODI player of the decade award

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1. Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli has not just scored heaps of runs in ODI cricket in the last decade, there has hardly been a phase where he has gone out of form since his debut.

There have been a couple of occasions where he has struggled in Test cricket in overseas conditions, but he never had any issues in ODI cricket at all.

Kohli has scored most hundreds in ODI cricket among the currently active cricketers and it seems he might eventually end up overtaking Sachin Tendulkar as the highest ODI run scorer of all time.

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If we talk about records in ODI cricket over the last decade, Kohli has played the most number of games (227), he has scored most runs (11,125), he has scored most hundreds (42) and he has been awarded the man of the match most number of times (35).

2. MS Dhoni

MS Dhoni is the only captain in the world who won two ICC trophies as a captain in the last decade. While he lifted the World Cup in 2011 with an Indian team full of senior players, he lifted the Champions Trophy in 2013 with a team full of juniors.

Dhoni was probably the greatest white ball captain over the last decade and is a strong contender to win the ODI player of the decade award.

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Apart from his captaincy skills, Dhoni’s numbers with the bat between 2010 and 2019 are wonderful as well. Considering the batting position where he batted most of the time, Dhoni did as good a job for India as any other middle order batsman of his time.

Dhoni was the no. 1 player in the world for a brief duration at the start of the decade.

3. Mitchell Starc

It’s a massive achievement to be able to finish as the highest wicket taker in one World Cup, Starc has been able to do it twice. The left arm speedster was the highest wicket taker of World Cup 2015 and was one of the main reasons why Australia lifted the trophy.

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The first over that Starc bowled to New Zealand’s most dangerous batsman Brendon McCullum in the the final match was extraordinary.

Starc then came back and grabbed the most number of wickets in World Cup 2019 as well. Although Australia could only reach the semi final in World Cup 2019, Starc’s individual performance with the ball was the best in the tournament.

The left arm speedster from Australia got 22 wickets in 8 games in World Cup 2015, while he got 27 wickets in 10 games in World Cup 2019.

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4. AB de Villiers

Collectively, AB de Villiers has nothing to show for in terms of the trophies that he has won, but nobody in the world managed to bat the way De Villiers batted in white ball cricket over the last decade.

A lot of players scored runs, but the authority and the dominance with which De Villiers scored his runs was magnificent.

The former South African captain, who is now retired from international cricket and plays only franchise cricket around the world, holds the record of scoring the fastest hundred ever in ODI cricket. That’s a record he registered playing against West Indies in an ODI series at home a few years back.

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Although De Villiers has not played any ODI cricket in the last two and a half hours, his record in the first half of the decade was good enough to earn him a nomination and might win him the award as well.

Abhishek

I write a bit on cricket and I am more interested in technical and tactical side of the game, rather than bravado.

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