JOHANNESBURG: India's Jhulan Goswami was named Women's Cricketer of the Year at the ICC awards ceremony here on Monday, an honor she said would greatly boost women's cricket in India. "Where there might have been a 35 percent awareness in India of women's cricket, there will now be about 45 percent," Goswami said.

"There was no nomination from India in the men's categories so it is even more special to do this for my country and make up for that disappointment. It was a wonderful pleasure to receive this award from the India (Twenty20) captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni as he is such a good player." Accepting the award, Goswami said: "It's a dream come true for me.

I am very excited to win this award. It is very unexpected because the other candidates are great players. It is very special for me." The 24-year-old medium-pacer from Bengal has claimed 33 wickets in eight Tests and 96 wickets in 79 ODIs. Her phenomenal accuracy with the ball is illustrated by her economy rate of 2.00 in Tests and 3.13 in ODIs.