Cricket News Today: Ben Stokes and Rohit Sharma bag top honors, Virat Kohli to 'rethink' number four slot and more- 15th January 2020

Hello and welcome to the daily round-up of all the major stories happening in the cricketing world today.First up are the ICC annual awards where Ben Stokes, Pat Cummins, and Rohit Sharma bagged the top honors. Following it up is the wrath of India's 10-wicket loss and Virat Kohli's stand on the number four slot and experimentation. Aaron Finch has applauded the effort of bowlers to restrict a strong Indian batting line-up while Prithvi Shaw is finally set to fly to New Zealand to join the A-side. Lastly, the custodians of cricket's laws, MCC have advocated five-day Tests over the new proposed format of four-day matches.Here is a look at those stories in detail.#1 Stokes, Cummins and Sharma bag top ICC honors; Kohli named captain of ICC Test and ODI sideEngland all-rounder Ben Stokes2019 CWC World Cup winner Ben Stokes lead the honors board at the annual ICC awards by winning the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for Best Cricketer of the Year. Stokes played an important role in England's maiden triumph at the CWC 2019 at home and his stupendous innings of 135 not out in the third Test in Leeds. He scored a total of 1540 runs and took 23 wickets in both ODIs and T20Is combined in 2019.Also see – India vs Australia schedule“The last 12 months have been the best in my career, and I believe what we attained will be the catalyst to achieve further success over the next few years.”Indian vice-captain Rohit Sharma won the ODI cricketer of the year for his consistent performances in the format throughout the year. Sharma scored five centuries at the CWC 2019 and made a total of 648 runs at an astonishing average of 81.00.“I would like to thank the ICC for giving me this award and the BCCI for giving me the opportunity to represent the country. It is great to be recognised in this fashion. We are very happy with the way we performed as a team in 2019. We could have done better but we have a lot of positives and a lot to look forward to in 2020.”Pat Cummins was awarded the best Test cricketer of the year award for taking 59 wickets in 12 Tests last year.“It’s a tremendous honour to be considered the best player of last year and one which was certainly unexpected. I owe much to my team, team-mates and all those involved in Australian cricket for what was a really successful year for the team. The highlight was certainly being able to retain the Ashes which was a great reward for the hard work that went into that tour.”Indian captain Virat Kohli won the spirit of cricket award for his gesture to the crowd in support of Steve Smith, who was making a comeback from the ban. Kohli was also chosen as the captain of both the ODI and Test side for the year 2019.When India fans started getting stuck into @stevesmith49, here's how #ViratKohli responded to them. And here's the reaction from the Australian! Absolute class! #SpiritOfCrickethttps://t.co/2gMOtR6lQZ— ICC (@ICC) June 9, 2019ICC Men’s Cricket AwardsSir Garfield Sobers Trophy for Best Cricketer of the Year Ben Stokes (England)Test Cricketer of the Year Pat Cummins (Australia)ODI Cricketer of the Year Rohit Sharma (India)T20I Performance of the Year Deepak Chahar (India, 6-7 v Bangladesh)Emerging Cricketer of the Year Marnus Labuschagne (Australia)Associate Cricketer of the YearKyle Coetzer (Scotland)Spirit of Cricket Award Virat Kohli stopping the fans booing Steve Smith at the OvalDavid Shepherd Trophy for Umpire of the Year Richard IllingworthICC Test Team of the Year (in batting order)Mayank Agarwal, Tom Latham, Marnus Labuschagne, Virat Kohli (captain), Steve Smith, Ben Stokes, BJ Watling (wicketkeeper), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Neil Wagner, Nathan LyonICC ODI Team of the Year (in batting order)Rohit Sharma, Shai Hope, Virat Kohli (captain), Babar Azam, Kane Williamson, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wicketkeeper), Mitchell Starc, Trent Boult, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep YadavFull article: ICC Awards | Ben Stokes, Pat Cummins, and Rohit Sharma bag top ICC honors; Virat Kohli named captain of ICC Test and ODI side

Cricket News Today: Ben Stokes and Rohit Sharma bag top honors, Virat Kohli to 'rethink' number four slot and more- 15th January 2020

#4 Prithvi Shaw set to join India A squad in New Zealand