Four Indians are in the running for the ICC Player of the Month awards for September. Shubman Gill and Abhishek Sharma are on the men’s shortlist with Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza, while Shafali Verma and Sree Charani are up against Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu for the women’s award.
Men’s shortlist
Shubman Gill (India)
The India captain is chasing his fifth Player of the Month award after scoring 333 runs in two ODIs against West Indies. He made 110 in the first match in Thiruvananthapuram and followed it with the fastest double-century in ODI history, 223 off 133 balls, as India chased 406 with eight wickets in hand and 39 balls to spare.
Abhishek Sharma (India)
Abhishek, who won the award in September last year, scored 229 runs in four T20Is. The highlight was 108 off 34 balls against Afghanistan at the Feroz Shah Kotla, which included a 30-ball hundred. That beat Rohit Sharma’s 35-ball century against Sri Lanka in 2017 as the fastest T20I hundred by an India batter, and it is the fastest by any batter from a Full Member nation.
Sikandar Raza (Zimbabwe)
Raza scored 57, 45 and 81 not out in Zimbabwe’s home ODI series against Australia, finishing with 183 runs at a strike rate of 92.89 and three wickets at an economy rate of 5.46. He also made 90 runs and took two wickets in three T20Is.
Women’s shortlist
Shafali Verma (India)
The opener was the leading run-scorer as India won the Women’s Asia Cup, and she scored 360 runs at a strike rate of 184.61 across the month. She also took six wickets. At the Asian Games she hit 100 not out against Bangladesh in the semi-final and 48 in the final against Sri Lanka as India won gold.
Sree Charani (India)
Nominated for the second time this year after June, the left-arm spinner took 18 wickets in seven T20Is at an economy rate of 3.30. After taking two for 13 in the Asian Games final, she reached 817 rating points, the highest ever recorded in the ICC Women’s T20I Bowling Rankings.
Chamari Athapaththu (Sri Lanka)
The three-time winner scored 226 runs at a strike rate of 140.37 and took 14 wickets in seven T20Is, leading Sri Lanka to the finals of both the Women’s Asia Cup and the Asian Games. Her best spell was seven for five, including a hat-trick, against Indonesia at the Asia Cup.
How the winners are chosen
An independent ICC Voting Academy of journalists, former players and broadcasters holds 90 per cent of the vote, with fans registered on the ICC website accounting for the remaining 10 per cent. The winners are announced in the second week of the month.
