Dhoni, Gambhir, Kohli in ODI list

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been named captain of ICC’s ‘ODI Team of the Year’ which also includes Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir.

This is for the fifth consecutive year in a row that Dhoni has been selected in ICC’s ‘ODI Team of the Year’.

A specially appointed five-member selection panel headed by former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd selected a 12-member team that includes three Indians, two Australians Michael Clarke and Shane Watson, Pakistanis Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal, Sri Lankans Kumar Sangakkara and Lasith Malinga, Englishmen Alastair Cook and Steven Finn. Morne Morkel is the only South African.

The ICC Chief Executive David Richardson announced the squad at a special function ahead of the LG ICC Awards ceremony which will be held Colombo on Saturday.

Apart from Lloyd, the other members of the panel were former Sri Lankan captain Marvan Atapattu, former West Indies skipper Carl Hooper, Australian all-rounder Tom Moody and former England women’s team captain Clare O’Connor.

Pak not to boycott

Meanwhile, Pakistan will not boycott the ICC awards ceremony, but will raise the issue of Saeed Ajmal's omission from the shortlist of candidates for the awards at the next chief executive's meeting of the apex body.

The Pakistan Cricket Board said on Friday that only a few members of the Pakistan team will attend the ceremony as a token but no senior board official will be present.

"We are not boycotting the ceremony but we will want to register our protest and feelings over Ajmal's omission," said a spokesman of the board.  He said the decision was taken at a meeting of senior board officials who had no doubt that the ICC had done great injustice to Ajmal.