ICC T20I Cricketer of the Year award: Mandhana among nominees
Elegant Indian opener Smriti Mandhana has been nominated for the ICC Women's T20I Cricketer of the Year award. She is among one of the four nominees in the category. England's Tammy Beaumont, Nat Sciver, and Ireland's Gaby Lewis have also been nominated for the prestigious honor. The International Cricket Council (ICC) released the names on Thursday. Here are further details.
Why does it matter?
The yearly ICC awards are organized to recognize the outstanding achievements and feats of the men and women cricketers across formats over the years. Winning this prestigious honor is a matter of great pride for a player. Apart from 13 individual recognitions, the world body will also announce five Team of the Year across formats for both men's and women's fields.
Smriti Mandhana in T20Is in 2021
Indian women's team had a terrible run this year in the shortest format of the game. India won only two of the nine T20Is games they played in 2021. However, Mandhana enjoyed a stellar campaign as she amassed 255 runs in nine matches. She averaged 31.87 and her strike rate was 131.44. She also struck two half-centuries with the highest score of 70.
Smriti Mandhana's career highlight
Mandhana has played 84 T20Is and scored 1,971 runs at 25.93. She has smashed 14 fifties and her highest score is 86. She has managed 2,377 runs in 62 ODIs at 41.70. She has notched up 19 fifties and four hundreds in ODIs. She donned the whites for India on four occasions, scoring 325 runs with the help of two half-centuries and one hundred.
Decoding the performance of Sciver, Beaumont and Lewis
Lewis has been the standout performer in women's cricket this year, scoring 325 runs in 10 T20Is, managing one hundred and a fifty. Beaumont amassed 303 runs with the help of three fifties in nine games at 33.66. Sciver scored 153 runs and picked ten wickets in nine games. Sciver registered one fifty, besides an economy rate of 6.51 with the ball.
