Sportskeeda Cricket Awards 2016: T20I All-rounder of the Year
T20 cricket is a format that has its own game of hide-and-seek to play. Either you have too much of it and is readily visible everywhere, or it just slithers into its comfort zone and lets itself get overshadowed by the bigger bullies of the game. What the bullies do not know is the fact that the best of assassins are always silent. This silence of the men who should speak up (unlike how CSA, PCB, and NZC didn't in 2014, as Dave Richardson has alleged), and the omnipresence of the shortest format of the game is giving a new lease of life to the game. Whether that lease is harmonising or patronising, is subjective to interpretations.
What the format undoubtedly does, though, is bring a new colour to the game. The innocuous 400s being churned out in ODI cricket have a lot to do with the razzmatazz of orgasmic cricket. Six-hitting is no more an art but a necessity, and specialist finishers are the kings in the legions of kings, knights, artisans and peasants (read bowlers).
While it definitely lowers the standards and the yardsticks by which we evaluate the performances of the ones less fortunate, but at the same time, even the smallest of achievements and the smallest of moments can make you a match-winner.
With only 120 balls at your disposal, it is often all or nothing for the players, and unlike life, they don't have the time to think about the meaning of it. Hence, the outstanding achievers of this particular format create their own niche.
Starting this year, we, at Sportskeeda, have decided to ask the fans of the game about individual and team performances and award the best players and teams through the Sportskeeda Cricket Awards.
The five nominees for the T20I All-rounder of the Year award were: Shahid Afridi (Pakistan), Hardik Pandya (India), Dwayne Bravo (West Indies), Shakib-Al-Hasan (Bangladesh), and Mohammad Nabi (Afghanistan). Here are the poll results:
| Player (team) | Position | Percentage of votes |
| Shahid Afridi (Pakistan) | 5 | 5% |
| Hardik Pandya (India) | 3 | 35% |
| Mohammad Nabi (Afghanistan) | 4 | 9% |
| Dwayne Bravo (West Indies) | 2 | 36% |
| Shakib-Al-Hasan (Bangladesh) | 1 | 15% |