Rangana Herath wins Sri Lankan Cricketer of the year award

Sri Lankan ace Rangana Herath, who is ranked fourth in the test bowler rankings, has won the Sri Lankan Cricketer on the year award beating off competition from ex-captain Kumar Sangakkara. This is the first time Herath has won Sri Lankan cricket’s top honour. NDTV Sports reports.

Most of the awards given out that evening were claimed by Herath and Sangakkara. Sangakkara continued his streak of bagging the people’s choice award, winning it for the fourth time in a row along with the Test batman of the year award. Herath, meanwhile, took home the award for Test bowler of the year.

Herath took an admirable 46 Test wickets with a commendable average of 22.13 along with the highest wickets tally in 2012, cementing his chance of winning the prize. Herath has become the third Sri Lankan to take 200 test wickets and he joins the likes of Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas in achieving this feat.

Former ICC Cricketer of the year, Kumar Sangakkara, hit 441 runs in just two tests this year, which include double centuries in three innings.

Tillakaratne Dilshan was bestowed with the title of best ODI batsman of the year and teammate Lasith Malinga won the best ODI bowler of the year.

Sri Lanka’s Twenty20 captain Dinesh Chandimal took home the Emerging cricketer of the year award for the second consecutive time while ODI and Test captain Angelo Mathews bagged the ODI all-rounder of the year award.