Zimpapers Logo

Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter

THE year 2022 is drawing to a close and it has proven to be one to remember for Zimbabwe senior men’s cricket team all-rounder Sikandar Raza who has been nominated for the International Cricket Council (ICC) Twenty20 International as well as One Day International Player of the Year accolades.
The middle order batsman and off spin bowler proved to be a vital part of the Zimbabwe national team with bat and ball, helping his side, for the first time, reach the Super 12 of the T20 World Cup which was held in Australia in October and win their first ever ODI series since 2017.

International Cricket Council

A remarkable year, which saw him become the first Zimbabwean to win an ICC Player of the Month accolade when he won the prize in August is about to be capped off with, possibly the biggest individual award any cricketer could ever dream of.
Nominated alongside Sam Curran (England), son of the late former Zimbabwe coach and captain Kevin Curran, Mohammad Rizwan (Pakistan) as well as Suryakumar Yadav (India) in the T20 Player of the Year award, Raza scored a huge 735 runs and took 25 wickets in just 24 matches. He was not shy of making and breaking records in the shortest format of the game. During the T20 World Cup, the 36-year-old finished with the most sixes in the tournament.

With 735 runs in the year at a strike-rate of over 150, Raza scored more than 250 runs over the next best Zimbabwe batter in T20Is. He also led the wickets chart for the Chevrons, taking 25 wickets at an excellent economy rate of 6.13.
Having been breaking records, Raza has also made or created one. With Zimbabwe, disappointingly bowing out of the tournament (T20 World Cup) Raza became the first ever cricketer in history to score 500 runs and take 25 wickets in T20 cricket in a calendar year.

Some of his best performances in 20 overs cricket came against Ireland, West Indies and Pakistan in the World Cup. In the Chevrons’ first match of the campaign, Raza took centre stage, top scoring with 82 off 44 balls and followed it up with stellar performances with the ball where he took 3-19 against the Windies and 3/25 against eventual finalists, Pakistan. The 82 runs is the highest by a Zimbabwean batsman at a T20 World Cup after Brendan Taylor’s 60 not out against Australia at the 2007 edition in South Africa.

With 219 runs and 10 wickets in the World Cup, Raza became, after Australian great Shane Watson, the second player to ever score over 200 runs and take over 10 wickets at a World Cup.
A stellar year in the shortest format also saw him break Virat Kohli’s record of most T20 Player of the Match awards in a year with seven which, however, was short lived as Yadav took over.

Chevrons

In ODIs, the Zimbabwean stalwart is nominated alongside Babar Azam (Pakistan), Adam Zampa (Australia) and Shai Hope (West Indies) and scored 645 runs accompanied by eight wickets in 15 matches.
He finished the year (last ODI match for Zimbabwe) with an average of 49.61 and strike rate of 87.16, making two fifties to complement the three centuries. All of his runs came against top sides that have been brilliant in the white-ball game in 2022. Of the three centuries, two were back-to-back against Bangladesh in Harare where Zimbabwe won their first white ball series since 2017.

The other hundred was a gallant effort against India where the Chevrons fell short. All the centuries came while chasing.
A memorable limited overs cricket year also saw him score 753 runs at Harare Sports Club, 540 in nine ODIs and 213 in six T20Is thus breaking the record for the most runs scored in a single venue in a calendar year.
The previous record for one ground in a calendar year was 738 by Pakistan’s Zaheer Abbas, in Lahore in 1982; his total was made up of 401 in three Tests, with 215 against India and 134 against Sri Lanka, plus 337 in three ODIs, in each of which he scored a century. – @brandon_malvin