Ponting surprised at Test award

MUMBAI, Nov 4, 2006 (AFP)

Captain Ricky Ponting expressed surprise at being named Test Player of the Year as Australia dominated the International Cricket Council awards here.

Ponting, who was also voted as Player of the Year, said Shane Warne should have been named the top Test cricketer.

“To be honest, I was shocked when I was named the Test player of the year,”said Ponting. “I thought Shane deserved it more than me. ”Warne took 96 wickets in the year while Ponting played 16 Tests in the voting period, scoring 1,791 Test runs at an average of 68.88.

With the Australians ruling both Test and one-day cricket, Ponting was also named on the ICC teams for both versions of the game, but surprisingly was not made captain.

Mahela Jayawardene of Sri Lanka was named the year's best captain over Ponting, England's Michael Vaughan and India's Rahul Dravid.

The choice of Dravid as the Test captain and Jayawardene as one-day captain over Ponting drew gasps from many in the crowd at the awards function late Friday.

Dravid has led India for only a year, losing an away Test series to Pakistan, beating Sri Lanka and drawing with England at home, before winning a rare Test series abroad in the West Indies.

Jayawardene, who replaced the injured Marvan Atapattu as Sri Lankan captain, convincingly won the one-day series in England but failed to make the semi-finals of the ongoing Champions Trophy.