England trio Alastair Cook, Matt Prior and Stuart Broad have been named in the ICC's Test Team of the Year.
Cook, Prior and Broad named in ICC Test team
New England captain Alastair Cook has been named in the ICC's Test Team of the Year.
Cook, who took over the reins as Test skipper on Wednesday following the retirement of Andrew Strauss, is joined in the line-up by team-mates Matt Prior and Stuart Broad.
It is the second year in the row Cook and Broad have been included, with South Africa's Dale Steyn named for the fifth successive season.
Six countries in total are represented in the 12-man line-up - with Australia's Michael Clarke named as captain of the team
Clive Lloyd, the chairman of the LG ICC Awards selection panel, said: "It is always tough to decide on the Test team with so many worthy candidates to consider based on performances between 4 August 2011 to 6 August 2012.
"The team once again has a strong batting line-up, while the bowlers are a tough combination of pace and spin who could dismiss any line-up on any surface.
"The process of selection was a difficult one, with a lengthy debate between the panel on all the top performances during the voting period and various combinations were considered.
"The selectors did utilise a vast amount of statistics from the period under observation, but we also took into account all other factors like the opposition, pitch conditions, match situation etc. But when you have only 12 places to fill from a big group of world-class players, there will always be a few who will miss out.
Awards
"In the panel's expert opinion, it has selected the best team based on performances over the past 12 months."
Meanwhile Clarke is in the running for the ICC Cricketer of the Year and ICC Test Cricketer the Year awards at ceremony in Colombo on September 15.
Hashim Amla, Kumar Sangakkara, Vernon Philander are also in the running for both awards.
Sangakarra could make it a hat-trick of awards after joining MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli and Lasith Malinga on the shortlist for the one-day award.
Tillakaratne Dilshan, Chris Gayle, Richard Levi and Ajantha Mendis are the nominations for the Twenty20 International (T20I) Performance of the year, while Doug Bracewell, Dinesh Chandimal, Sunil Narine and James Pattinson are competing for the ICC Emerging Cricketer of the Year crown.
England's Sarah Taylor and West Indian Stafanie Taylor are nominated for both the ICC Women's ODI Cricketer of the Year and the ICC Women's T20I Cricketer of the Year awards.
Lydia Greenway and Anisa Mohammed complete the nominations for the women's ODI title, while Alyssa Healy and Lisa Sthalekar are in the mix for the women's T20I award.
