Photo: Collected
Indian cricketers had a great month of September. Now recognition of that has come in the nominations for the ICC Player of the Month. Across the women’s and men’s categories, four of the six nominated for the best player of September are cricketers from India.
The ICC published the shortlist of the best players of September on Tuesday (6 October). In men’s cricket, Zimbabwe’s Sikandar Raza has been nominated along with India’s Shubman Gill and Abhishek Sharma. In women’s cricket, Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu is there along with India’s Shree Charani and Shafali Verma.
In the men’s category, Gill performed superbly throughout September. The India captain scored 333 runs in two ODIs against the West Indies. After 110 runs in the first match, he played a record-setting innings of an unbeaten 223 off 133 balls in the second ODI. Besides making a big contribution to India’s win in the chase of a 406-run target, his innings of 223 became the fastest double century in ODI history.
Abhishek Sharma’s September was also wrapped in records. The left-handed opener scored 229 runs in the three-match T20 series against Afghanistan. In the third match of the series he brought up a century off just 30 balls. Meanwhile, Sikandar Raza scored 57, 45 and an unbeaten 81 with the bat in the ODI series against Australia. His tally in three matches stood at 183 runs, along with three wickets.
In women’s cricket, Shafali Verma shone with the bat and Shree Charani with the ball. Shafali hit a century against Bangladesh. Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu shone with the bat, of course, and also with the ball.
