Two West In­dies play­ers, Shai Hope and Alzarri Joseph have been named in the ICC Team of the Year. The team recog­nis­es 11 out­stand­ing in­di­vid­u­als who have im­pressed one and all – be it with the bat, the ball or their all-round ex­ploits in a cal­en­dar year.

Here's a look at 11 play­ers who dom­i­nat­ed in 2022 and make the cut in the 50-over for­mat of the game for men's crick­et.

Babar Azam (cap­tain) – Pak­istan: Pak­istan cap­tain Babar Azam once again showed his prowess in the 50-over for­mat, dis­play­ing once again why he has ruled the roost at the top of the MRF Tyres ICC Men's ODI Play­er Rank­ings since Ju­ly 2021. In the nine match­es Babar played this year, the 28-year-old reg­is­tered eight scores of more than fifty, three of which he con­vert­ed in­to hun­dreds. He fin­ished the year with 679 runs at a stun­ning av­er­age of 84.87. It was a mem­o­rable year for Babar as cap­tain of the Pak­istan ODI team, win­ning three se­ries out of three. Pak­istan were un­stop­pable in the ODI for­mat, los­ing just one match (against Aus­tralia) out of nine. His lead­er­ship skills means that he leads the ICC Men's ODI Team of the Year for 2022.

Travis Head – Aus­tralia: With for­mer skip­per Aaron Finch call­ing it quits from the 50-over for­mat, Aus­tralia have al­ready found his long-term suc­ces­sor at the top of the or­der. Usu­al­ly an at­tack­ing mid­dle-or­der bat­ter, Head bril­liant­ly rein­vent­ed him­self as an open­er in ODIs, be­com­ing one of Aus­tralia's most con­sis­tent bat­ters in the for­mat. It was a year to re­mem­ber for Head – who be­came one of the first names on the Aus­tralian team sheet – notch­ing up 550 runs from nine games at 68.75. His runs came at a strike-rate of 112.24 and in­clud­ed two cen­turies and three fifties.

Shai Hope – West In­dies: Hope had a bril­liant year in 2022, be­ing at his con­sis­tent best for the West In­dies in the 50-over for­mat. Hope did not get off to the great­est of starts in 2022 but in typ­i­cal fash­ion start­ed to grind out runs in the lat­ter half. He fin­ished the year with 709 runs, which in­clude three hun­dreds and two fifties, at an av­er­age of 35.45. the high­light a su­perb cen­tu­ry in his 100th ap­pear­ance against In­dia at the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad – 115 with eight fours and three six­es.

Shreyas Iy­er – In­dia: Shreyas Iy­er emerged from 2022 as one of In­dia's most con­sis­tent bat­ters in the 50-over for­mat while al­so be­come the an­chor of their mid­dle-or­der. Most­ly slot­ting in at No.4, Iy­er played 17 games dur­ing the cal­en­dar year and scored 724 runs at an av­er­age of 55.69. His scored his runs at a brisk pace of 91.52, which in­clud­ed one cen­tu­ry and six fifties. With the ICC Crick­et World Cup 2023 fast ap­proach­ing, Iy­er has moved ahead of the com­pe­ti­tion to be­come a reg­u­lar fix­ture in the In­dia ODI set­up.

Tom Lath­am (wk) – New Zealand: Of­ten re­gard­ed as a sol­id bat­ter, Tom Lath­am added a new di­men­sion to his game in 2022, of­ten play­ing the role of a fin­ish­er from the No.5 po­si­tion. Lath­am scored 558 runs from 15 match­es at an av­er­age of 55.80 and a siz­zling strike-rate of 101.27. He notched up two fifties and two cen­turies in the year be­com­ing a vi­tal cog of the New Zealand mid­dle-or­der. Lath­am was al­so sol­id be­hind the stumps, af­fect­ing 16 dis­missals.

Sikan­dar Raza – Zim­bab­we: 2022 wit­nessed the resur­gence of Zim­bab­we on the in­ter­na­tion­al scene and a lot of it was down to one man – Sikan­dar Raza. Raza ag­gre­gat­ed 645 runs at an av­er­age of 49.61 and strike rate of 87.16, mak­ing two fifties to com­ple­ment three cen­turies. With ball in hand, Raza was ever-re­li­able, scalp­ing eight wick­ets while giv­ing away just more than five an over.

Mehidy Hasan Mi­raz – Bangladesh: Mehidy Hasan Mi­raz emerged as one of the most con­sis­tent all-rounders in ODI crick­et in 2022, with some bril­liant dis­plays. With his bowl­ing as ef­fec­tive as ever, Mi­raz de­vel­oped his bat­ting fur­ther, of­ten bail­ing Bangladesh out of some tough sit­u­a­tions. He picked up 24 wick­ets in 15 games at an av­er­age of 28.20 with a best per­for­mance of 4-29. He al­so scored 330 runs at a stun­ning av­er­age of 66, with one cen­tu­ry and one fifty.

Alzarri Joseph – West In­dies: Joseph de­vel­oped from a high­ly-rat­ed prospect to a re­li­able per­for­mance with the ball for the West In­dies in the year 2022. Not lack­ing in pace and im­prov­ing on his ac­cu­ra­cy, Joseph worked on his fit­ness and be­came a fear­some prospect for the bat­ters to face. Joseph played 17 match­es and took 27 wick­ets at an av­er­age of 25.70 and a strike-rate of 33.4. He was al­so miser­ly with an econ­o­my rate of 4.61, with best fig­ures of 3-36.

Mo­hammed Sir­aj – In­dia: Mo­hammed Sir­aj's skillset in white-ball crick­et, es­pe­cial­ly the 50-over for­mat de­vel­oped in leaps and bounds in 2022. With Jasprit Bum­rah of­ten miss­ing due to in­jury, Sir­aj emerged as the most po­tent weapon of the In­dia pace unit. De­liv­er­ing with both the new and old ball, Sir­aj played 15 match­es and picked up 24 wick­ets. His wick­ets came at an econ­o­my of 4.62 and an av­er­age of 23.50, with best fig­ures of 3-29. Sir­aj has moved ahead of the pack and has a good chance of be­ing a part of the In­dia pace bat­tery come the Crick­et World Cup in home con­di­tions sched­uled for lat­er this year.

Trent Boult – New Zealand: The left-arm pac­er has been a bea­con of con­sis­ten­cy for al­most a decade and the year 2022 was no dif­fer­ent. Bat­ters again strug­gled to counter his swing with the new ball, while find­ing it trou­bling to face him due to his skills in the mid­dle and death overs. Boult played on­ly six games in 2022 but made a mas­sive im­pact in them. He scalped 18 wick­ets at a stun­ning av­er­age of 12.38 and a miser­ly econ­o­my of 3.98, with best fig­ures of 4-38. An­oth­er year, an­oth­er sen­sa­tion­al set of dis­plays from the con­sis­tent New Zealand seam­er.

Adam Zam­pa – Aus­tralia: Adam Zam­pa con­tin­ued to show why he has been such a vi­tal cog in the Aus­tralian white-ball set­up, fin­ish­ing the year as the high­est wick­et-tak­er for his coun­try in ODI crick­et. The leg­gie en­joyed his joint-most pro­lif­ic year in ODI crick­et, match­ing his tal­ly of 30 wick­ets from his de­but year in 2016. His feat was even more im­pres­sive this year con­sid­er­ing nine of the 12 match­es he played were at home, where con­di­tions aren't favourable for spin­ners.

(CWI Me­dia)