ICC announces nominations for Men's Player of the Month, 2 Pakistan cricketers make the cut
The ICC today announced its nominees for the Player of the Month Award for April. Two Pakistani cricketers, Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam, made the cut. Meanwhile, Kushal Bhurtel from Nepal was the other nominee.
The winner is decided based on online voting organized by ICC. For the month of March, India's Bhuvneshwar Kumar won the award for his brilliant outing with the ball against England in the limited over series.
How did the three ICC nominees fare in April?
Babar Azam has been in dazzling form and the Pakistan skipper enjoyed a fruitful time with the bat in the away series against South Africa. The 26-year old scored 228 runs at a strike rate of 104 in the 3-match ODI contest against the Proteas, including two man-of-the-match performances.
Babar Azam was involved in 7 T20Is in the month of April, four against South Africa and three against Zimbabwe. The skipper scored two half-centuries and one hundred, including a 59-ball 122 against South Africa in Centurion. Babar averaged 43.75 with the bat over the course of two T20I series, while his strike rate was 126.55.
Babar Azam also overtook Virat Kohli as the no.1 ICC batsmen in ODI.
Coming to Fakhar Zaman, the batsman won the Man of the Series award in the 3-match ODI series against South Africa for his two brilliant hundreds. Zaman played a heroic knock of 193 in the second ODI against the Proteas, which eventually came in a losing cause. Zaman finished the three-match ODI series with 302 runs to his name, which he scored at an impressive strike rate of 111.43.
Nepal's opening batsman Kushan Bhurtel also made the cut for his impressive showing with the bat in the T20I tri-series against the Netherlands and Malaysia. The 24-year-old scored three consecutive half-centuries, becoming the first man to achieve such a feat in T20Is. His blistering form with the bat helped Nepal win the tri-series, where Bhurtel ended up as the top scorer with 278 runs.