Kohli, Tendulkar in running for top ICC awards

In-form India batsman Virat Kohli, the leading run-scorer in ODIs this year along with Sachin Tendulkar has been nominated for the top ICC Awards 2012.

While Kohli has been nominated for the Cricketer of the Year and ODI Cricketer of the Year awards, Tendulkar has once again been nominated for the ICC People's Choice award.

Those nominated for the People's Choice award include Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara, South Africa's duo Vernon Philander and Jacques Kallis, while England's James Anderson makes up the quintet of nominees.

For the third time in the history of the awards, fans will have the opportunity to decide the winner, this time by accessing an application on the ICC's official Facebook page: www.facebook.com/cricketicc [1]. Voting will be open until midnight August 31.

Both Sangakkara (2011) and Tendulkar (2010) have won the award in the past.

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and opener Gautam Gambhir have also been nominated for the ODI Cricketer of the Year award.

However, India don't have a single nomination in the Test Cricketer of the Year award.

Six players have been nominated in three different categories -— Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal, South Africa's Hashim Amla, Australia captain Michael Clarke, Sangakkara, England's Alastair Cook and West Indies Stafanie Taylor.

The six players all feature in the ICC Cricketer of the Year, the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy, long list, while the male nominees are all nominated in both the Test Cricketer of the Year and ODI Cricketer of the Year long lists, Taylor on the other hand features in the Women's ODI Cricketer of the Year and Women's T20 Cricketer of the Year long lists.

It is the first year the men's and women's voting academy and awards have become fully integrated, and Taylor becomes the first female to be long-listed for the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy at the ninth annual ICC Awards, which will be held on September 15 in Colombo ahead of the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka.

This year's awards include 11 individual prizes and also features the selection of the Test and ODI Teams of the Year.

The long-lists of nominations were made by a five-man ICC selection panel chaired by former West Indies captain and current chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee Clive Lloyd. The panel also includes former international players Clare Connor of England, Tom Moody of Australia, Carl Hooper of West Indies and Sri Lanka’s Marvan Atapattu.

This year sees the integration of the selection and voting panels for the women's awards and sees the creation of two women's awards, ICC Women's ODI Cricketer of the Year and ICC Women's T20 Cricketer of the Year.