The ICC has nominated two England players and one young Netherlands all-rounder for the Player of the Month for July award this time.
The ICC introduced the Player of the Month award in January 2021 to ‘recognise cricketers, male and female, that performed best across all forms of international cricket each month’. The ICC has continued with awarding the best player every month in both men’s and women’s internationals.
Nominees and winners are selected by an ICC panel of retired players, journalists, and with a public vote having a 10% contribution to the final results.
Here are the 3 nominees for ICC Player of the Month for July:
Zak Crawley
Opener Zak Crawley personified England’s Bazball approach with the bat and repaid the immense faith that Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum had put in him during his time of struggled. The lanky opener Zak Crawley finished the Ashes 2023 as the second-highest scorer of the series with 480 runs at an average of 53 and strike rate of 88 with 2 fifties and a century, a massive knock of 189 (182) at Old Trafford.
Crawley finished only 16 runs behind the top scorer Usman Khawaja, but the difference in their strike rates – Khawaja’s 39 to Crawley’s 88 – was massive and further represented England’s Bazball style.
Chris Woakes
Chris Woakes’s comeback to the England side from the third Test at Headingley turned around England’s fortunes in the Ashes 2023. Despite being benched from the first two Tests, Woakes, who made significant contributions with the bat and ball in the three Tests that he featued in, ended up as England’s Player of the Series in the Ashes.
Woakes picked 19 wickets in 3 Tests – finishing as the third-highest wicket-taker – at a brilliant average of only 18, accentuating his status as one of the best pacers in English conditions. His 32* ensured England cross the run-chase in Leeds and he also scored 36 in first innings at The Oval, where England won by 49 runs.
Bas de Leede
23-year-old Netherland all-rounder Bas de Leede had a dream time in the ODI World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe, his all-round heroics helping Netherlands qualify for the main even, the World Cup 2023, in India later this year.
Bas de Leede performed one of the greatest individual show against Scotland, picking up 5/52 with the ball and then cracking 123 runs in 92 balls to help the Dutch chase down 278 in 42.5 overs. Bas de Leede became just the 5th player in ODI history to attain the record of a five-wicket haul and a century in the same match, joining Viv Richards, Paul Collingwood, Rohan Mustafa, and Amelia Kerr.
Bas de Leede finished the World Cup qualifiers with jaw-dropping numbers: 285 runs in 7 matches at an average of 47 and 15 wickets in 7 outings.
