The International Cricket Council (ICC), on Wednesday, announced the nominees for the Men’s Emerging Cricketer of the Year for 2022. The apex international body has named two pacers and as many openers in the list that feature India’s Arshdeep Singh, South Africa’s Marco Jansen, New Zealand’s Finn Allen and Afghanistan’s Ibrahim Zadran.
Arshdeep, who made his India debut on the tour of England in July this year, had a memorable 2022 with quite a few notable performances. The left-arm speedster has bagged 33 wickets in T20Is at an economy rate of 8.17 and impressed one and all with his excellent bowling at the death.
On the back of his impressive show in T20Is, Arshdeep also received his maiden cap in ODIs during the tour of New Zealand in November. He played two innings out of three matches and hasn’t yet picked a scalp in the 50-over format.
Like Arshdeep, another left-armer who has impressed everyone is South Africa’s fast bowler Jansen. The Potchefstroom-born made his debut against India in all three formats, but his exploits in Tests have been eye-catching. Jansen has picked up 36 Test wickets and scored 229 runs at an average of 22.90. He also got two wickets in ODIs and one scalp in the shortest format.
New Zealand’s opening batter Allen has gained attention right from the beginning. In the year 2022, Allen scored 411 runs in T20Is at an average of 21.63 and a strike rate of 155.09. The right-handed batter made his ODI debut against Ireland in July and has so far scored 387 runs at an average of 38.70 and a strike rate of 94.39 from 11 games. The youngster has replaced veteran Martin Guptill as the opener for New Zealand and has had a memorable 2022 with the bat.
The fourth and last nominee in the list by ICC is Afghanistan opener Zadran, who has shown his mettle in white-ball cricket with his recent exploits. Afghanistan’s automatic qualification for the next Cricket World Cup happened on the banks of Zadran’s performances. He scored 431 runs in ODIs this year at an average of 71.83 and a strike rate of 88.31, including three centuries. When it comes to T20Is, Zadran made 367 runs at an average of 36.70 and a striker rate of 109.55.
