Pietersen Up for Awards Hat-trick

Kevin Pietersen has been rewarded for another outstanding year with England by being nominated in three different categories for the annual ICC Awards ceremony.

The Hampshire batsman has been nominated for Test player of the year after scoring four centuries and one double century in the 12 months starting from August 9 2006.

He is joined in the nominations for that category by fellow England player Ryan Sidebottom, who has claimed 24 wickets in six appearances since regaining his Test place at the start of the summer, but there is no place for Geraint Jones.

Left-arm spinner Monty Panesar is also nominated for the Test player of the year after claiming 42 wickets in 11 Tests during the same period, including four five-wicket hauls, and all three will be competing against players like Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Australian trio Stuart Clark, Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey.

Pietersen is England's only nomination for the one-day player of the year, but both Ravi Bopara and Chris Tremlett have been nominated for the Emerging Player of the Year award won last year by Warwickshire's Ian Bell.

England's only representative among the Cricketer of the Year nominations is again Pietersen, who will be competing with last year's winner Ricky Ponting and three other Australians - Glenn McGrath, Hayden and Hussey among others for the major prize.

The awards ceremony will be held in Johannesburg on September 10, shortly before the start of the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 tournament.