2024-05-13 18:27:28
New Delhi: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced the winners of the ICC Player of the Month Award for April 2024 on May 13, after releasing the list of players last week. Hayley Matthews, who led West Indies to victory in both the ODI and T20 series in Pakistan, has been chosen as the ICC Women’s Player of the Month. Whereas United Arab Emirates (UAE) captain and opener Mohammad Wasim has been chosen ICC Men’s Player of the Month for his excellent batting in the ACC Premier Cup.
Matthews won the third Player of the Month award.
This is Mathews’ third ICC Women’s Player of the Month award after winning in November 2021 and October 2023. He performed brilliantly in April, scoring 451 runs and taking 12 wickets in both the shorter formats. West Indies started their Pakistan tour with three ODI matches, where captain Mathews performed strongly in the very first match. As an opening batsman, he scored unbeaten 140 runs and then took 3 wickets for 17 runs.
Mathews was in good form in the third match also. He scored 141 runs in 149 balls and took 2 wickets for 26 runs, helping West Indies win the ODI series. After this, 26-year-old Mathews maintained his dominance in the T20 series also. By scoring two consecutive half-centuries and taking 6 wickets at an average of 10.50 in Karachi, he played a key role in helping the tourists win the series 4–1.
Wasim Khan becomes the first player to win Player of the Month award for UAE
Wasim has become the first player from United Arab Emirates (UAE) to win the ICC Player of the Month title. He left behind Pakistan’s Shaheen Afridi and Namibia’s Gerhard Erasmus in the men’s category. Wasim said after the win, ‘It is a great honor to win the ICC Men’s Player of the Month award. I am thrilled to join this esteemed list of award winners from around the world.
Since making his international debut in October 2021, Wasim has been a key player in the UAE’s batting line-up. He is already the third-highest run-scorer for his team in the ODI format, with 1289 runs to his name with an impressive strike rate of 91. His figures in T20 International are even better. In T20 history, he is the leading run-scorer for UAE, with 1977 runs to his name at an average of around 40 and a strike rate of 154.69. He showed the same excellent T20 form in the ACC Men’s Premier Cup in April.