India captain Harmanpreet Kaur and vice-captain Smriti Mandhana on Wednesday earned nominations for the ICC Women’s Player of the Month award for September 2022. Apart from the two, Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana has also been named.
Despite runs and not getting the desired results in the T20I series in England earlier in the month, Harmanpreet looked in good form during the subsequent ODI series, earning her the Player of the Series award as the highest run-scorer. He scored 221 runs at a strike rate of 103.27.
Scoring 221 runs in three matches, he kept his team ahead at the finishing line with an unbeaten 74 in the first match, before scoring an unbeaten 143 for his team in the second match.
He led his team to a historic first ODI series win for his team in England since 1999 with the best innings in this format and then a 3–0 series clean sweep at Lord’s.
Like Harmanpreet, Smriti is one of the key batsmen in India’s batting lineup. He scored consistently in both white-ball series, scoring an unbeaten 79 off 53 balls during the second T20I in Derby. Ended the series after becoming the highest scorer for India in T20Is with 111 runs at an average of 55.50. At the same time, he scored 91 runs in the first ODI.
In the final match where India were bundled out for just 169 at Lord’s, he scored a half-century to end the month at an average of over 50 in both formats, underlining the scale of his successes in September.
Nigaar, on the other hand, scored 180 runs in five T20Is at an average of 45, during her team’s successful ICC Women’s T20 World Cup qualification campaign in the United Arab Emirates.
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