PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad –The members of the World T20 Champion West Indies Team were given special honours on Thursday night at a gala function hosted by the West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players Association.
The 15 players and eight members of the team management all received commemorative gold rings in recognition of their outstanding performance to win the ICC World T20 Trophy in Sri Lanka last year. The presentations were made by Mr Dave Cameron, President of the WICB and Mr Anil Roberts, Minister of Sports in Trinidad & Tobago, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the capital city of Port-of-Spain.
Under the captaincy of Darren Sammy, West Indies won the title last October when they beat Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.
"This is a truly special honour – one that all of us will cherish. This is a remarkable gift. On behalf of the team I want to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who came up with this idea and all those who made it possible. We played an amazing brand of cricket to win over in Sri Lanka to win the trophy for our people. Now it feels really great to be honoured, in this way, here at home," Sammy said.
Several other awards were presented during the night. West Indies off-spinner Sunil Narine and Marlon Samuels, two stars of the World T20 triumph, both won two awards.
Narine, the 2012 ICC Emerging Player of the Year, was voted Regional Limited-Overs Player of the Year and West Indies T20 Player-of-the-Year. Samuels, who earlier this year named as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year, copped the prize for West Indies ODI Player of the Year and the prestigious award of overall West Indies Player of the Year.
The inaugural WICB Lifetime Achievement Award went to Jackie Hendriks. The former Jamaica and West Indies wicket-keeper played 20 Test matches between 1962 and 1969. After retirement he was President of the Jamaica Cricket Association, a long-standing Director of the WICB and Manager of the West Indies team.
The WIPA Lifetime Achievement Award went to Winston Reid. The former Barbados left-arm spinner played 53 first-class matches and 47 List A matches for his island between 1985 and 2000. He took 205 first-class wickets and also had over 1,500 wickets in club cricket in Barbados in a career which spanned over three decades.
OTHER AWARD WINNERS
Test Player of the Year: Shiv Chanderpaul
Emerging Player of the Year: Kieran Powell
Women’s Cricketer of the Year: Stafanie Taylor
Caribbean T20 Player of the year: Krishmar Santokie
First-class Player of the Year: Nikita Miller
First-class Team of the Year: Jamaica
Under-19 Player of the Year: Jeremy Solozano
Under-19 Team of the Year: Barbados