The ICC have commenced their announcement of the nominations for their year-end awards, having earlier named the players shortlisted for the Emerging Cricketer of the Year award. The men’s category has four nominees, with Gus Atkinson and Saim Ayub joining Shamar Joseph and Kamindu Mendis. The women’s contenders include Annerie Dercksen, Saskia Horley, Shreyanka Patil and Freya Sargent.

On Sunday (December 29), the ICC also announced the men’s and women’s T20I nominees. The contenders are Arshdeep Singh, Babar Azam, Sikandar Raza and Travis Head in the male category, with Orla Prendergast, Laura Wolvaardt, Melie Kerr and Chamari Athapaththu among the top four in the women's.

According to an ICC release, shortlists have been drawn up by a specialist panel of cricket writers and broadcasters, who selected the nominees according to on-field performances and overall achievements in international cricket throughout the calendar year.

Babar Azam’s “mixed year”

In their description of Babar's year in 2024, the ICCwrote on their website: "Despite a mixed year, no other Pakistan batter scored as many T20I runs as Babar Azam in the last 12 months. With six fifties and close to a hundred boundaries, Babar was Pakistan’s mainstay and the year saw an improvement in his strike rate, with the batter clocking 133.21 runs every 100 deliveries. Still only 30, Babar is primed to break Rohit Sharma’s record as the highest run-getter in T20I cricket soon, sitting just eight behind the Indian’s mark of 4231 runs."

Former Pakistan skipper Babar, who made 738 runs in 23 innings at an average of 33.54. Babar sits at the top of the run charts among Full Members in 2024, making more than 100 runs more than the next batter on the list. Mohammad Rizwan, who made 617 runs, is the second-highest run-scorer from Pakistan in the format this year. The two are the only Pakistan players with more than 500 runs in T20Is in 2024.

However, his strike rate of 133.21 continued to make headlines, putting him 30th out of 48 Full Member batters with more than 300 runs in the year.

In particular, he struggled during the T20 World Cup, where, under his leadership, Pakistan also failed to qualify for the second round. They crashed out after a surprise defeat to the USA in the group stage, in which Babar scored 44 off 43 balls, and he had a strike rate of just above a run a ball across the competition, albeit in conditions which proved tough for all batters.

Suryakumar Yadav, not nominated in 2024, won the title in 2023 and 2022. Mohammad Rizwan was the prize's inaugural winner in 2021.

Jasprit Bumrah snubbed

Also of note is Bumrah's absence from the list of nominees. It is possible that only playing eight games in 2024 counted against the India quick, but all of those games came in his nation's T20 World Cup triumph, their first global triumph in over a decade.

Bumrah was named Player of the Tournament after an astonishing campaign, finishing third on the wicket charts with 15 scalps while maintaining an economy rate of 4.17, the lowest such figure for any bowler bowling 20 overs in a T20 World Cup campaign.

In the final, with India seemingly down and out, he helped start a stunning fightback, conceding six runs across two death overs and bowling Marco Jansen after the asking rate had been brought down to a run a ball.

While his campaign ranks among the greatest in history, it wasn't enough to earn a place on the ICC's list.

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