Virat Kohli wins ICC spirit of Cricket Award for asking fans to applaud Steve Smith

New Delhi : Indian skipper Virat Kohli has been awarded with the ICC Spirit of the Cricket Award for his kind gesture of asking fans to applaud Steve Smith during the ODI World Cup in England last year.

On June 9, during a game against Australia, an annoyed Kohli had gestured towards his fans to cheer for Steve Smith, who was apparently getting booed by the major section of the audiences in the Kennington Oval.

Chants of 'cheater, cheater' were reportedly directed towards the former Aussie captain by the crowd following which Kohli chided the fans before personally apologising to Smith for the incident.

During the game, Smith had returned to the international cricket after serving his year-long ban because of ball-tampering case in 2018.

However, Smith later said that he was not affected by the booing by the audiences in the crowd while thanking Virat Kohli for the lovely gesture.

"Yeah, it was a lovely gesture. It doesn’t really bother me what the crowd do to be perfectly honest, I’m just sort of blocking it all out but it was a lovely gesture from Virat, that’s for sure," he had said.

Meanwhile, India opener Rohit Sharma was chosen as the ODI Men’s cricketer of the Year while Aussie pacer Pat Cummins selected Test cricketer of the Year.