Joe Root, who won the International Cricketer of the Year and International Batsman of the Year awards, was the biggest winner of the night. In a surprising decision, Rohit Sharma pipped Virat Kohli to the Indian cricketer of the year award, with Kohli winning the T20 Player of the Year honour.

Ajinkya Rahane was handed out a special award for becoming the fifth Indian cricketer to score a century in both innings of a Test match – he achieved the feat against South Africa in the fourth Test of the Freedom series at the Feroz Shah Kotla in December last year.

Ravichandran Ashwin, who picked up 57 wickets in 8 Tests and 27 wickets in 17 ODIs, was adjudged the International Bowler of the Year.

"The IPL gave me the opportunity to showcase my skills. I picked up off spin at 17 which was quite late, I feel, but it was first class cricket that enabled me to keep getting better. I strive to keep better and one day I want to bowl four maiden overs in a T20 game. I would like to take it with both hands whenever given the chance," Ashwin told the media.

Rohit Sharma, who walked away with the Indian Cricketer of the Year award, said, "A lot of Test cricket is coming up and preparation for one format of the game will help us. The year 2015-16 has been a good year for us. As you saw we won a Test series in Sri Lanka after a long gap and we won the Test series at home against South Africa.

"We did well in the World T20 Championship although we lost to the West Indies (in the semis). They deserved to be champions as they played well throughout the tournament."

Virat Kohli, who has had a phenomenal World T20 and IPL, deservedly won the best T20 Player of the Year award. The Indian Test skipper scored 669 runs in 15 T20 matches at a stunning average of 95.57.

However, the biggest winner of the night was England's Joe Root, who won both the International Cricketer of the Year award and the International Batsman of the Year award for his amazing consistency across all the three formats of the game. Root was the only batsman with 40-plus average in all the three formats.

 Here is the complete list of award winners at the Ceat Cricket Awards 2016:

Lifetime Achievement Award - Dilip Vengsarkar

International Cricketer of the Year - Joe Root

International Batsman of the Year - Joe Root

International Bowler of the Year - Ravichandran Ashwin

Test Cricketer of the Year - Kane Williamson

ODI Cricketer of the Year - Martin Guptill

T20 Player of the Year - Virat Kohli

Indian Cricketer of the Year – Rohit Sharma

Special Award – Ajinkya Rahane