The International Cricket Council (ICC), on Sunday, December 29, 2024, announced the nominees for the Men’s T20I cricketer of the year award for 2024. This includes India’s Arshdeep Singh, who helped India win the T20 World Cup 2024.
Arshdeep Singh picked 36 wickets in 18 T20Is for India with a best bowling of 4/9. Arshdeep Singh assumed the lead bowler role in India’s T20I setup and his 36 wickets in the format. This is only second to Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s 37 wickets in 2022.
He played a huge role in India winning the T20 World Cup 2024, as he partnered with Jasprit Bumrah in the West Indies leg of the tournament and in the final, gave only 4 runs away in the penultimate over to bringing the asking rate up from 10 at the start of his over to 16 by the end of it.
The other three nominees for the ICC Men’s T20I Cricketer of the Year for 2024 are Zimbabwe’s Sikandar Raza, Pakistan’s Babar Azam, and Australia’s Travis Head.
Sikandar Raza, who captained Zimbabwe in the format, has an excellent year with both the bat and the ball. He picked 24 wickets in 24 matches including best of 5/18 and scored 573 runs with the highest total of 133*.
Raza was instrumental in Zimbabwe’s unbeaten run in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup sub-regional Africa Qualifier Group B, smashing 199 runs and picking up 10 wickets.
Pakistan’s Babar Azam makes this list as well, with 738 runs in 24 matches with a best of 75*. He had captained Pakistan for the better part of the year also, including in the T20 World Cup 2024. With six fifties and nearly a hundred boundaries, Babar was Pakistan's cornerstone, and his strike rate improved throughout the year, clocking 133.21 runs per 100 deliveries.
Babar smashed 75 from 42 balls in the second T20I on the tour of Ireland, with six fours and five sixes, at an excellent strike rate of 178.57, to put his side on the verge of victory.
Travis Head of Australia was nominated as well, with 539 runs in 15 T20Is. He averaged 38.50 and his best score was 80. The notable thing for Head was that all these runs came at a strike rate of 178.47.
Head was the highest run-getter inthe T20 World Cup 2024 as well, with 255 runs, taking off at a strike rate of 158.38.
(ICC inputs)
