5 cricketers who didn't deserve to win the Man of the Tournament award in a World Cup
Winning the World Cup for his country is always special for any player irrespective of the sport. Apart from felicitating the tournament winners, the sports' governing bodies honour the best performers of every World Cup tournament as well. The case is no different with Cricket as the ICC honours the most valuable performer of a World Cup with the Player of the Tournament award.
Though the Cricket World Cup was first played in 1975, the first ever time a player was honoured with this award was in 1992. Since then, at least one player has been honoured with the award in each of the ICC World Cups and the World T20.
Sometimes, the winner might be from the winning team and on few occasions, his team might have failed to win the tournament.
The reason behind this award is to acknowledge the individual performances of a player throughout the tournament. Though the deserving players won the award on most occasions, sometimes, there were some undeserving names that went on to win the award.
Let us take a look at some of the undeserving Player of the Tournaments and the player(s) who deserved to win the award.
1992 World Cup
The 1992 World Cup saw underdogs Pakistan win the World Cup after being eerily close to getting knocked out early in the tournament. They defeated England in the final by 22 runs to win their maiden ICC championship.
The architect of the win for Pakistan was their left-arm seamer Wasim Akram, who looked in a completely different league throughout the tournament. He troubled every single batsman he bowled at in the tournament.
The paceman took 18 wickets in 10 matches at an average of 18.77, with an economy of 3.7, and gave his team crucial breakthroughs whenever needed. But, he was overlooked for the Player of the Tournament as Kiwi captain Martin Crowe was given the award for his 456 runs in 9 matches at an average of 114.
Crowe's achievement in the World Cup was phenomenal but Wasim had a bigger impact on the tournament as he led his team to the World Cup.