ICC Awards – ODI Team of the Year announced

ICC News: The Team includes Dhoni as captain, while Umar Gul is the sole Pakistani >

The ICC panel formed for the purpose of LG ICC Awards has announced the ODI Team of the Year, an ICC release has revealed today. The Awards ceremony will be held late in the day in London. MS Dhoni will lead the team, becoming the only player selected for the 4^th year running.

The 12-member team includes four Indians, three Sri Lankans, two South Africans, and one player each from Australia, Pakistan and England. AB de Villiers and Shane Watson are the only players apart from Dhoni who also were part of the ICC ODI Team of the year 2009.

The finalists of the last World Cup, India and Sri Lanka, are duly represented by most number of players. The performance of Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan was instrumental in helping India become world champions and this also gave them a place in the ICC line-up.

The runners-up, Sri Lanka, are represented by their captain Kumar Sangakkara, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Lasith Malinga (12^th man). 
 
The selection panel includes Clive Lloyd as chairman, Zaheer Abbas, Mike Gatting, Danny Morrison and Paul Adams. Although there was no set criteria, but the statistics were used as a guide to select the team.

Lloyd said: "This has been an outstanding year for 50-over cricket. I think everyone saw in the ICC Cricket World Cup how exciting this format can be. The ICC Cricket World Cup was rightly applauded as one of the greatest in history and no one who was in Mumbai will forget that remarkable evening.”
The ICC Test Team of The Year was announced by the same panel last month.

The ICC ODI Team of the Year 2010:

Virender Sehwag
Tillakaratne Dilshan
Kumar Sangakkara
AB de Villiers
Yuvraj Singh
Shane Watson
MS Dhoni (C)
Graeme Swann
Zaheer Khan
Umar Gul
Dale Steyn
Lasith Malinga (12^th man)