West Indies allrounder Stafanie Taylor has become the first woman to be nominated for the ICC Cricketer of the Year award after being included in the 2012 longlist for the ICC's top accolade. This is the first time the men's and women's voting academy and awards have become fully integrated and puts Taylor, who was named Women's Cricketer of the Year in 2011, in contention for the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy along with Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal, South Africa's Hashim Amla and Vernon Philander, Australia captain Michael Clarke, Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara, England's Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad and India's Virat Kohli.

Taylor also features in two new categories of women's awards that will be introduced this year: the ICC Women's ODI Cricketer of the Year and ICC Women's T20I Cricketer of the Year. Ajmal, Amla, Clarke, Sangakkara and Cook lead the nominations for male cricketers, after being featured in three categories - the ICC Cricketer of the Year, ICC Test Cricketer of the Year and ICC Men's ODI Cricketer of the Year longlists.

The shortlists for the awards will be announced towards the end of August and the longlists will be pruned to four per category. The People's Choice award, though, will retain the current five nominations: Sangakkara, India's Sachin Tendulkar, Philander, South Africa's Jacques Kallis and England's James Anderson.

This year's awards include 11 individual prizes and will also feature the selection of the Test and ODI Teams of the Year. The awards ceremony will be held on 15 September in Colombo ahead of the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka.

The longlists of nominations were made by a five-man ICC selection panel chaired by former West Indies captain and current chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee Clive Lloyd. The panel also included former international players Clare Connor of England, Tom Moody of Australia, West Indies' Carl Hooper and Sri Lanka's Marvan Atapattu.