Coventry hit an unbeaten 194 not-out score in an ODI tie against Bangladesh in Bulawayo last August. A man with few international credentials, Coventry equalled the record for the highest ODI score previously held by Saeed Anwar. It was his first ODI century, and he had never before made over 106 in any form of senior cricket. The youthful Zimbabwean cricketer will however have to starve off stiff competition from some of the worlds best batsmen, among them Pakistans Shoaib Malik, Paul Collingwood of England and Sri Lankas
Tillakaratne Dilshan.
The last year of the 2000s saw 239 games played in the three international formats ODIs, Twenty20 game and Test cricket. Cricinfo’s staff have trawled the scorecards and racked their memories and narrowed it down to 57 star performances across six shortlists for the third edition of the ESPNcricinfo Awards. The jury this year features 14 former cricketers, commentators and senior Cricinfo editors and writers who will each pick their top three performances in each of the categories bowling and batting in Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s.
Each number one vote for a performance gets it three votes, second place receives two votes while third position gets a single vote.
The six winners will be announced in the second week of February 2010. The ESPNcricinfo Awards have two components: the performance awards and the Statsguru Awards, based on hard statistical data. The Statsguru Awards go beyond runs scored, wickets taken or batting average, and are based on detailed data analyses of performances in 2009. The list of winners will be announced at the same time as the performance awards. Players from India and England lead the nominations for the performance awards this year. Nine performances from each of those two teams feature across the six shortlists. They are followed by Pakistan with eight, Australia with seven, Sri Lanka and New Zealand with six apiece, West Indies with five, and South Africa with three.
Post published in: Zimbabwe Sports News