Australian batter Travis Head is among the four players in contention for the International Cricket Council’s men’s player of the year award.
Prolific England batter Harry Brook, his teammate Joe Root, and Indian bowler Jasprit Bumrah are the other three men’s nominees announced by the ICC on Monday.
Bumrah has been superb with his seam bowling this year and produced another near unplayable spell when he took 5-57 in the fourth Test against Australia, which finished Monday with a dramatic victory for the Aussies in Melbourne.
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It was his 13th five-wicket haul in Tests and the 31-year-old now has 203 Test wickets at an average of 19.42.
He took 71 wickets in 13 Tests this year, averaging a remarkably low 14.92. He also captured 15 wickets as India won their second men’s T20 World Cup title.
Root has enjoyed a brilliant year with the bat, scoring 1556 runs from 17 Tests with an average of 55.57.
Travis Head. Getty
It was the fifth time he has scored 1000 Test runs in a calendar year and his six hundreds — including a career-best score of 262 — took him to 36 Test tons and joint fifth place all-time with India’s Rahul Dravid.
He also surpassed Alastair Cook to become England’s leading run-scorer with 12,972.
Brook compiled 1100 runs from 12 Tests at a strike rate of 85.00, showcasing both his brutal hitting and ability to improvise under pressure with some exquisite timing.
He hit four hundreds, including a superb triple century with a blistering 317 off 322 deliveries against Pakistan on an admittedly pancake-flat track in Multan — where Root made his 262 during their marathon 453-run stand.
Head, meanwhile, has stood out with his aggressive counter-attacking batting in both Tests and T20s.
In nine Tests this year Head made 608 runs at 40.53, including three centuries.
South Africa batter Laura Wolvaardt and Sri Lanka’s all-formats captain Chamari Athapaththu are the women’s nominees along with Australian all-rounders Annabel Sutherland and Melie Kerr of New Zealand.
Australia’s Annabel Sutherland. Gareth Copley via Getty Images
Wolvaardt scored 697 runs across 12 ODIs, averaging 87.12 with a highest score of 184 not out. She complied 223 runs across three Tests, averaging 37.16 with a best knock of 122.
Athapaththu hit 458 runs across nine ODIs, averaging 65.42 with a top score of195. In T20s she scored 720 runs and took 21 wickets, with best figures of 4-29.
