Johannesburg – South Africa's ODI captain AB de Villiers has been named as the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year for the second successive year. He also won this award in 2010.
In the voting period, De Villiers scored 1 265 runs in 20 innings at an average of just over 79 and a strike-rate of 128.4. He hit two centuries and nine half-centuries.
Earlier this month, de Villiers was named as the captain of the ICC ODI Team of the Year.
A delighted de Villiers said: “It is an honour to be named as the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year for 2015. It's certainly been a memorable year with many highlights but a lot of disappointments as well.
“If I was to look back, the century I scored against the West Indies at the Wanderers will probably go down as the most memorable knocks of the year. In saying that, centuries count for nothing if the team isn't winning, so hopefully in the future I can contribute to many more Proteas wins.”
Meanwhile in other ICC accolades, Steve Smith became the fourth Australia player and 11th player overall to win the prestigious Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy after being named as the ICC Cricketer of the Year 2015.
Smith also won ICC Test Cricketer of the Year award.
Meg Lanning was adjudged ICC Women's ODI Cricketer of the Year while Stafanie Taylor declared ICC Women's T20I Cricketer of the Year Josh Hazlewood claims ICC Emerging Cricketer of the Year award; Khurram Khan earns ICC Associate and Affiliate Cricketer of the Year award Brendon McCullum scooped ICC Spirit of Cricket Award while Richard Kettleborough completes a hat-trick of ICC Umpire of the Year titles.
Smith follows in the footsteps of Ponting (2006 and 2007), Mitchell Johnson (2009 and 2014) and Michael Clarke (2013) to lift the coveted trophy since the inception of the awards in 2004.
Other recipients of the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy include Rahul Dravid (2004), Andrew Flintoff and Jacques Kallis (joint-winners in 2005), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (2008), Sachin Tendulkar (2010), Jonathan Trott (2011) and Kumar Sangakkara (2012).
The top-order batsman was also adjudged the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year, which has made him only the seventh cricketer after Dravid (2004), Kallis (2005), Ponting (2006), Sangakkara (2012), Clarke (2013) and Johnson (2014) to bag the two coveted prizes in the same year.
During the voting period, which ran from September 18 2014 to September 13, 2015, the 26-year-old from New South Wales finished as the leading run-scorer in Tests with 1 734 runs in 25 innings of 13 matches at an average of 82.57. This included seven centuries and six half-centuries.
In 26 One-Day Internationals, Smith scored 1 249 runs at an average of just under 60 with four centuries and eight half-centuries. He was a member of the Australia side which won the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year. Earlier this month, Smith was also named in the ICC Test and ODI Teams of the Year, which were picked by the ICC selection panel that was headed by former India captain and Chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee Anil Kumble.
Reacting to the news, a delighted Smith said: “Given that there are so many great players around the world, I'm incredibly honoured to receive these awards. While team success is always my number-one motivation, awards like this are very special. I'm thrilled and very proud to receive them. - African News Agency (ANA)