CEAT Cricket Awards fro 2016 has been announced and in a surprising decision Rohit Sharma has been awarded as the Indian Cricketer of the year. Sharma’s national team mate as well as a star player Virat Kohli won the T20 player of the year honor. But the English cricketer Joe Root proved as a bigger star with winning the International Cricketer of the year along with the International Batsman of the year as he was the only batsmen with 40-plus average in all the three formats.

Ravichandran Ashwin, Indian spinner, won the International Bowler of the year award due to his performance of taking 57 wickets in 8 Tests and 27 wickets in 17 ODIs

Ashwin said while accepting the award, “The IPL gave me the opportunity to showcase my skills. I picked up off spin at 17 which was quite late, I feel, but it was first class cricket that enabled me to keep getting better. I strive to keep better and one day I want to bowl four maiden overs in a T20 game. I would like to take it with both hands whenever given the chance.”

The consistent performer in every form of the game, Ajinkya Rahane, won a special award for becoming the fifth Indian cricketer to score century in both innings of a Test match. He achieved the glory against South Africa in the fourth Test of the Freedom series at Feroz Shah Kotla in December last year.

Rohit Sharma who won the prestigious Indian Cricketer of the year award said, “A lot of Test cricket is coming up and preparation for one format of the game will help us. The year 2015-16 has been a good year for us. As you saw we won a Test series in Sri Lanka after a long gap and we won the Test series at home against South Africa.”

“We did well in the World T20 Championship although we lost to the West Indies (in the semis). They deserved to be champions as they played well throughout the tournament,” he further added.

Virat Kohli deserved the T20 player of the year award as he had an outstanding T20 world cup as well as the IPL. The Indian Test skipper scored 669 runs in 15 T20 matches at a brilliant average of 95.57.

Complete list of CEAT Cricket Awards 2016

Lifetime Achievement Award - Dilip Vensarkar

International Cricketer of the Year - Joe Root

International Batsman of the Year - Joe Root

International Bowler of the Year - Ravichandran Ashwin

Test Cricketer of the Year - Kane Williamson

ODI Cricketer of the Year Martin Guptill

T20 Player of the Year - Virat Kohli

Indian Cricketer of the Year - Rohit Sharma

Special Award - Ajinkya Rahane

By Prajakt K.