The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the nominations for the Player of the Month award for December for both men and women. As the name suggests, the top best performers for the month find themselves getting nominated in men's and women's matches during those 30-31 days while one gets to be the winner after the public voting and ICC jury's call.
Australian captain Pat Cummins with his double five-wicket haul in the Boxing Day Test against Pakistan was one of the standout performers, adding to his three wickets in Perth. Glenn Phillips, the top run-getter for New Zealand in the two Tests against Bangladesh got a place alongside Cummins apart from Bangladesh left-arm spinner Taijul Islam. As far as women players are concerned, Jemimah Rodrigues and Deepti Sharma, the two Indian stars who performed across formats against England and Australia headlined the nominations while Zimbabwe's Precious Marange was the third nominee.
The 41-year-old Marange was the leading wicket-taker (13) in the Africa Regional Qualifier for the Women's T20 World Cup 2024 and hence found her name on the list. After half-centuries in the two Tests (one each against England and Australia), Rodrigues scored 82 and 44 in the two ODIs while Deepti had a phenomenal month with both bat and ball.
Deepti was the Player of the Match against England in the one-off Test match and ended up scoring 165 runs across two red-ball games and 11 wickets. In the second ODI against Australia, her five-wicket haul helped India restrict Australia to 258/8.
As far as the Indian women's cricket team is concerned, only Harmanpreet Kaur has been able to win the ICC Player of the Month Award for September 2022 since it started back in 2021.
As far as men are concerned, none of Cummins, Phillips or Taijul have won it before and whoever wins, will get it for the first time.
