Man of the match award, although, only an individual reward, certainly reflects how much of an impact a player is single-handedly making on the performance of the team. Indian cricket has always had a few superstar players who have been making a bit more impact on the team’s performance as compared to the other players and the no. of the man of the match awards that they win testifies to that.
Here are the 3 Indian players who have won the most no. of a man of the match awards in a single year –
Sachin Tendulkar (1998)
1998 was probably the year when Sachin Tendulkar hit the peak of his career as he scored 3 hundred in just 5 test matches he played that year. Tendulkar’s average in test cricket in 1998 was over 80 and then he scored 9 ODI hundreds to go with it as well, in just 34 games and averaged more than 65 in ODI cricket. Since T20 cricket was not in existence back in the day, Tendulkar went on to win as many as 13 man of match awards in test and ODI cricket combined in 1998.
Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma (2019)
2019 was the year when the previous ODI World Cup took place in England and Rohit Sharma broke Sachin Tendulkar’s record of scoring most number of hundreds in a single World Cup, as he scored 5 ODI hundreds in the ODI World Cup in England in 2019.
Virat Kohli, who was the captain of India across all three formats back then, was also very consistent right through the year and there was a bit of a competition between Rohit and Kohli as to who won the most man of the match awards. Eventually, both finished with a total of 9 men of the match awards in 2019.
Most M.O.M Awards in a Year for IND
13 – Sachin (1998)
9 – Kohli (2019)
9 – Rohit (2019)
9 – Kohli (2016) https://t.co/dKNcXQLjHOAdvertisement— 𝑺𝒉𝒆𝒃𝒂𝒔 (@Shebas_10dulkar) October 10, 2022
Virat Kohli (2016)
Apart from 2019, 2016 was also a very fruitful year for Virat Kohli as a batsman. It was the same year when Kohli had that memorable run in the T20 World Cup in India and he powered India to the semi-final of the tournament where India eventually lost to the West Indies. Kohli was in fine form in test cricket as well in 2016 and the total no. of the man of the match awards that he won across formats that year was 9.
