Suryakumar Yadav front-runner as ICC announces nominees for Men's T20I Cricketer of the Year award

Team India star Suryakumar Yadav is among the four names nominated for the ICC Men's T20I Cricketer of the Year award. The 32-year-old has had an incredible 2022 and is deservedly the No. 1 ranked T20I batter at the moment.

'SKY' has played 31 T20Is in 2022, scoring a mind-boggling 1164 runs at a fantastic average of 46.56. He also smashed 68 sixes, the most by any batter in T20Is in a calendar year. Yadav scored two centuries against England and New Zealand as well.

The fact that Suryakumar Yadav has also maintained a strike rate of more than 180 just shows how incredible he has been. However, Yadav faces competition from Sam Curran, Sikandar Raza and Mohammad Rizwan for the award.

Rizwan was arguably the second-best batter of 2022 in T20Is and deservingly got a place in the nominees for his consistency. He scored 996 runs and played a crucial role in getting Pakistan to the final of the T20 World Cup.

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Suryakumar Yadav to face stiff competition from all-rounders

Sam Curran and Sikandar Raza have been impressive this year in the shortest format with both the bat and the ball. Curran won the Player of the Tournament award in the T20 World Cup and also picked up a sensational 25 scalps in 19 games in 2022.

It was quite a story for the all-rounder as he pulled out of IPL 2022 to work on his fitness and stepped up for England in the absence of pacers like Reece Topley and Jofra Archer.

Raza has been a fantastic batter for Zimbabwe over the years, but he performed well even with the ball in 2022. He scored 735 runs and also picked up 25 wickets in 24 games to gain some much-deserved recognition.

The Zimbabwe all-rounder played a crucial role with the ball in Zimbabwe's stunning victory over Pakistan in the T20 World Cup.