Dubai: Pakistan’s Babar Azam was appointed the captain of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s ODI squad of the Year 2022. Under Babar, who was the only Pakistan player in the chosen lineup by the world cricket governing body, in the calendar year gone by, Pakistan had the best win/loss ratio among all the teams that played One Day Internationals. Out of the nine matches they played, Pakistan emerged victorious in eight.
Shreyas Iyer and Mohammed Siraj were the only Indian players, who found a place in the XI. While Iyer scored 724 runs in the 17 matches he played, most by any Indian batter, Siraj was the leading wicket taker for the men in blue with 24 scalps in 15 ODIs.
From Australia, Travis Head, who found a new life in ODIs as an opener notched up 550 runs from nine games at 68.75. Adam Zampa was also part of the honors after matching his best wicket taking tally for Australia in a calendar year (2016) as he picked 30 wickets in 12 games.
Completing the bowling attack were New Zealand’s Trent Boult and West Indies’ Alzarri Joseph. Having only played six games across 2022, Boult amazed with an 18 wickets tally while Joseph was prolific for the Windies, grabbing 27 dismissals of 17 outings.
Among the all-rounders in the lineup were Mehidy Hasan Miraz (24 wickets, 330 runs) and Sikandar Raza (8 wickets, 645 runs) of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe respectively. Shai Hope (703 runs) found space owing to his heroics at number three for the West Indies while New Zealand skipper Tom Latham was appointed as the designated wicketkeeper having also scored 558 runs from 15 matches for the Black Caps.
