The ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year 2023 Award goes to Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Mohammed Shami, and Daryl Mitchell. All four had great tournaments at the Cricket World Cup in India.
In 29 games, Shubman Gill (India) has scored 1584 runs and caught 24 balls. Even though Shubman Gill was still pretty young on the biggest stage, 2023 would be his coming-of-age year in international cricket. He had his best games in ODIs, where he scored 1584 runs at an average of 63.36 by the end of the year. It was the fifth-highest number of runs scored by an Indian in an ODI season. Only Sachin Tendulkar (1996, 1998), Rahul Dravid (1999), and Sourav Ganguly (1999) scored more. Gill was a rock at the top of the order for India, along with captain Rohit Sharma. He scored five hundreds and had a strike rate of over 100. The two of them put together some of the best opening stands of the year.
Gill scored 354 runs, which is an average of 44.25, and won the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023. The opener couldn’t start the World Cup for India because he had dengue fever, but he quickly got better and hit his stride with a fifty against Bangladesh. He finished the event with four fifties, one of which was an unbeaten 80, during which he left the game because of cramps and came back later in the last over.
Interesting to remember How it Works John Shubman Gill hit a great 208 against New Zealand in Hyderabad early in the year, which made him the youngest player to reach 200 in a year. Gill came into the game in Hyderabad full of confidence after a good series against Sri Lanka that ended with a hundred in Thiruvananthapuram. He then went on to smash an amazing 208 off just 149 balls. During the run, Gill also tied for second fastest to 1000 ODI runs. Gill did so well on his own that he helped the team score almost 60% of its runs. One interesting thing is that no other Indian hitter even hit fifty during the innings. Indian scored 349 runs, which they held by 12 runs thanks to Gill’s knock, which included 19 fours and 9 sixes. Gill scored three more hundreds in ODIs that year, but this one stood out because he almost single-handedly helped India reach a big score with very little help from the other team.
Mohammed Shami (India) has taken 43 wickets, scored 36 runs, and made 3 catches in 19 games. Mohammed Shami made the second half of 2023 a show, after a very average first half. He was at his best for India at the Cricket World Cup. Even though he missed the first few games of the tournament, Shami jumped right back into the starting XI and ended the tournament with 24 wickets at an amazing average of 10.7. In the seven games he played in the event, Shami took three five-wicket hauls and one four-wicket haul. With 55 wickets in just 18 games, the seamer broke the record for most wickets taken by an Indian player at a Men’s Cricket World Cup. There are only seven bowlers who have taken more than 50 wickets in the Cricket World Cup, and Shami is the only one who has done it in as few games. Shami’s tournament was even more impressive because he wasn’t in India’s first-choice XI at the start of the event. But he came back and made a big difference in India’s run to the final of the home World Cup.
Performance to Remember
Shami had a great World Cup. His record score of 7/57 against New Zealand in the semi-final was the high point of his performance. In the run chase, Shami got rid of the starters and then went back to get Williamson’s head to end a good partnership with Mitchell. He then got rid of Tom Latham with the next ball, ending New Zealand’s great effort in Wankhede in a pretty tough chase.
When Shami got the double strike, he broke New Zealand’s back, but he didn’t stop there. He went back and bowled Mitchell out for 134 and then the tail to finish with seven wickets, which is the best ODI stats by an Indian player.
In 27 games, Virat Kohli (India) has scored 1377 runs, taken 1 wicket, and caught 12 balls. Virat Kohli had a great year after his return in 2022. He was at his best in one-day internationals (ODIs) and won Player of the Tournament at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023. India’s number three hit at least a fifty in nine of his eleven World Cup games. He finished with an amazing 765 runs, which is the most ever scored by a single batter at a men’s Cricket World Cup, beating Sachin Tendulkar’s record from 2003. Kohli had three hundreds during the event, including one against New Zealand in the semi-finals. His average was 95.62 and his strike rate was 90.31. His hit in the semi-finals gave him a record 50 ODI hundreds, making him the most prolific century hitter in the game’s history. Even though he scored another fifty in the final, it wasn’t enough to help India win. The stunned silence after he was out in Ahmedabad in the final showed how important Kohli was to India’s hopes of winning the title. At the end of the year, he had scored 1377 runs, with an average of 72.47. In 24 games, he had scored six centuries and eight half-centuries.
Performance to Remember
Kohli saved his best for the semi-final match against New Zealand, which was the first of the knockout rounds at the World Cup. Kohli got right into it when he came in after Rohit Sharma’s wicket fell. He didn’t stop until he reached a record 50th century in the format. “It was like a dream come true. Anushka was sitting right there, and Sachin paaji was in the stands,” Kohli later said when he was being interviewed during the break in the game.
The setting was “picture perfect” for Kohli, but for India, the reason for the knock was even more important. Four years ago, the Kiwis broke Kohli’s heart in England, but his record hundred and big stand with Shreyas Iyer made it possible for a huge score of 397.
In 26 games, Daryl Mitchell (New Zealand) has scored 1,204 runs, taken 9 wickets, and caught 22 balls. In 2023, Daryl Mitchell was at his best in one-day internationals. He scored 1,204 runs by the end of the year, which was the third-most by a New Zealand player in a calendar year in that format. Mitchell had a slow start to the year in the bilaterals in Pakistan and India as well as the home series against Sri Lanka. But in April, he turned things around brilliantly by scoring back-to-back hundreds in Pakistan. Before the World Cup, he hit another hundred in England, but he saved his best for that event. He became New Zealand’s middle-order rock when Kane Williamson was out for most of it. Mitchell scored 552 runs in the World Cup, with a hit rate of over 100 and an average of 69. India had one of the best bowling attacks in the event, but he still scored two hundreds against them.
Performance to Remember
Mitchell saved his best for India in the event. He treated their spin bowlers with disdain and hit two balls that put the hosts, who were supposed to win, on the back foot. Mitchell’s 130 off 127 balls helped set a good score in the league game in Dharamsala. He came in to bat when his team was two down for 19 runs, which was a tough spot. In the middle part of New Zealand’s innings, Mitchell didn’t get much help, but he brought them to a good score by himself, which wasn’t enough.
A few days later, in the semi-final, he led the team to a run-chase of 398, which wasn’t all that different from the first game. Mitchell and Williamson worked together to keep New Zealand in the run chase at the third wicket. Mitchell kept going for his shots even after Williamson was out. He wasn’t out until the 46th over, by which time New Zealand had scored 300 runs. Mitchell hit 134 runs off of just 119 balls, with nine fours and seven sixes.
