Ponting wins two ICC awards, India draw a blank

The ICC's annual awards night was expectedly dominated by the Australians, who captured five of the 10 awards on offer.

Indicative of the steep slump in their form, India drew a blank at the ICC annual awards for 2006 that saw the world champions Australia steal most of the honours with captain Ricky Ponting claiming two awards, including the most prestigious 'Player of the Year' award at a glittering function in Mumbai on Friday.

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Ponting won the Garfield Sober's Trophy presented to the best cricketer besides bagging the Best Test Player of the Year award.

Indian skipper Rahul Dravid was in the running for the Captain of the Year honour while Yuvraj Singh had been nominated for the One-Day International Player of the Year award, but both lost in the race to Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene and Australian middle order batsman Michael Hussey, a late bloomer on the international circuit, respectively.

The ICC's annual awards night was expectedly dominated by the Australians, who captured five of the 10 awards on offer with Simon Tauffel, winning the 'Umpire of the Year' award and Karen Rolton winning the newly-introduced 'Woman Player of the Year'.

Dravid, however, had a consolation prize in store by being named the captain of the ICC's dream 'Test' team, a selection of star performers from various countries.

But the team did not include any other Indian cricketer, although the ODI team of the year with Jayawardene named to lead it had in its ranks three Indian youngsters Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan.