Australia's skipper Pat Cummins and India's star allrounder Deepti Sharma have claimed the ICC Player of the Month award for December after impressive match-winning performances.
Cummins was the standout performer for the reigning World Test champions during the recent three-match Test series against Pakistan on home turf. He bagged a total of 19 scalps across the three games at a mind-blowing average of 12 and finished as the leading wicket-taker in the series.
Cummins expressed happiness about the team's performance throughout the course of 2023 across formats. He is also "pleased" with the overall effort of the unit in the ongoing Australian summer and looks forward to the series against West Indies and New Zealand.
"It’s been a great year for the group across all formats and to cap it off with a strong performance against a challenging Pakistan side was a nice way to finish 2023.
"Overall we are very pleased with the summer so far and looking ahead to the West Indies and New Zealand series," Cummins told ICC.
On the other hand, Deepti too was spectacular with both bat and ball in hand during the month of December and helped India achieve some favourable results at home against England and Australia.
She bagged figures of 9/39 in the one-off Test against England at the Wankhede and also scored a fifty in the first innings to help the side post a mammoth total.
She also racked up 78 runs in the only Test against Australia following the historic victory over England and claimed two wickets to help India script another historic win - their first over Australia in the format.
Notably, it's Deepti's first Player of the Month award.
"It’s an honour to be voted the ICC Women’s Player of the Month for December. I feel very good about my game at the moment and I’m glad that reflected in my performances for India last month against strong opponents. I’ll continue to work hard so that I can have more moments like this in the future.
"I’m grateful to have been chosen for this award and the fact that fans around the world also voted for me makes it extra special. I want to thank them and my teammates for helping me win this award," Deepti told ICC.
