Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma react to their ICC 2019 awards

The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced its awards for the year 2019 and it saw two of the best Indian cricketers being conferred with various felicitations. Indian captain Virat Kohli and vice-captain in white-ball cricket, Rohit Sharma were given prestigious awards by cricket’s governing body and the duo shared their reactions on receiving the accolades.

Rohit Sharma was named the ODI cricketer of the year thanks to a stupendous display of batting through 2019. His crowning glory came in the 2019 World Cup when he slammed a record five centuries in the tournament, and top-scored as well with a tally of 648 runs, one more than Australia’s David Warner. The opener has been amazing for the Indian team for years now, but in 2019, he managed to outshine Indian skipper Virat Kohli with the bat.

‘Feels great when performance is recognized in this fashion’: Rohit Sharma

BCCI shared a video on their Twitter and website as well, in which Rohit Sharma thanked the BCCI and ICC for the award. “I would like to thanks ICC and BCCI. Firstly, ICC for considering me for this award and BCCI for giving me the opportunity to represent the country.

It is a very prestigious award, feels great when your performance is recognized in that fashion. We are very happy as a team how we performed in 2019. We would take a lot of positives from 2019 and wish to continue the same way in 2020 and lots to look forward,” Rohit said in the video.

‘I am surprised that I have got it’: Virat Kohli

Indian captain Virat Kohli was given the award for the ICC Spirit of the Year for the year 2019. He received the award for his gesture of asking the crowd to stop booing Steve Smith during the Australia-India match in the 2019 World Cup. Smith had returned from the ban for his ball-tampering and the Indian crowd was giving him a hard-time when Kangaroos fielded. Kohli gestured the crowd to stop booing the former Australia skipper.

“I’m surprised that I have got it, after many years of being under the scanner for the wrong things. That moment was purely understanding an individual’s situation. Booing someone is something I don’t think is in the spirit of any sport. I totally don’t endorse it. It also shouldn’t be a representation of our fans for how we stand as a cricketing and sporting nation,” Kohli said in the video.

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