de Villiers wins ODI Player of Year Award

South Africa's AB de Villiers has won the ODI Player of the Year award at the ICC Awards in Bengaluru. De Villiers beat off tough competition from India's Sachin Tendulkar and the Australia duo of Shane Watson and Ryan Harris to take the prestigious award.

During the voting period, de Villiers helped his side to ten victories in 16 ODIs, scoring 855 runs at an average of 71.25 and at a rate of 103.38 runs per 100 balls faced. In that time he hit four fifties and four centuries, and also picked up five dismissals in the four matches in which he played as wicketkeeper. He is currently the No.1-ranked ODI player in the world, comfortably ahead of the next best.

On receiving his first-ever ICC award de Villiers said: "I've really enjoyed this season and it's great to have been named the ODI Cricketer of the Year. It's a World Cup season and a World Cup is something we would love to win and we rate our chances pretty highly".

De Villiers also features in the ODI Team of the Year and is the only South African in the side selected by the expert five-man panel.

The panel was chaired by West Indies legend Clive Lloyd and included former Australia batsman Matthew Hayden, former England bowler Angus Fraser, former Zimbabwe player and England coach Duncan Fletcher and former India all-rounder Ravi Shastri.