Sri Lanka’s Dunith Welalage and Harshitha Samarawickrama were on Monday named the International Cricket Council (ICC) Player of the Month for August 2024. Welalage performed brilliantly in the home ODI series against India while Harshitha impressed on the Ireland tour.
Only once before this have both male and female players from the same country received the Player of the Month award in a month. In June this year, India’s Jasprit Bumrah and his compatriot Smriti Mandhana were named the best players of the month.
Velalage won the award beating South African spinner Keshav Maharaj and West Indies fast bowler Jaden Seals. Velalage was named the best player of the series during Sri Lanka’s 2-0 series win against India. Apart from scoring unbeaten 67, 39 and two runs, the 31-year-old left-handed batsman also took a total of seven wickets in the series, including five wickets for 27 runs in the third match.
This is the fifth time since the inception of this award that Sri Lanka’s men’s cricket has received this award. Earlier, Angelo Matthews (May 2022), Prabath Jayasuriya (July 2022), Wanindu Hasaranga (June 2023) and Kamindu Mendis (March 2024) have won this award. Velalage said that this award is very encouraging.
He said, “This is very good news for me and it gives me great satisfaction because this honor will give me more strength to continue the good work as a player and contribute to my team to achieve excellence on the field.” Velalage said, “Such recognition from ICC is very good news for young players like us and it will definitely encourage young players.”
On the other hand, in the race for the women’s award, Harshitha beat the Ireland pair of Orla Prendergast and Gaby Lewis. On the Ireland tour, Harshitha became only the third Sri Lankan woman cricketer to score a century in ODIs. The 26-year-old left-handed batsman Harshitha scored a total of 151 runs in two T20 Internationals at a strike rate of 169.66, including a match-winning innings of 86 not out in 45 balls in the first match.
She scored 172 runs in three ODIs in Belfast at a strike rate of 82.69, including an innings of 105 runs in the second match. Harshita is only the second Sri Lankan cricketer to be named ICC’s Women’s Player of the Month. Sri Lanka captain Chamari Atapattu has won this title twice in May and July this year.
Disclaimer: Prabhasakshi has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.