Dubai: India star batter Smriti Mandhana has been shortlisted for the ICC Women’s ODI Cricket of the Year after a brilliant year with the bat.
Mandhana nominated for the annual honour of the 50-over format alongside Laura Wolvaardt of South Africa, Annabel Sutherland of Australia and Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu.
A pair of centuries in June against South Africa in Bengaluru got Mandhana’s 2024 campaign rolling, and the left-hander managed two further hundreds later in the year to stay in good touch right up until December.
Mandhana managed a total of 343 runs from three innings in a Player of the Series effort against South Africa and got her third hundred of 2024 when amassing 100 in the final match of India’s home series against New Zealand right after the completion of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.
Another hundred followed in the final match of her side’s three-game series with Australia in December, but that was in vain as the Aussies completed a 3-0 series sweep of their own.
Wolvaardt commenced the year in a glut as she managed just seven runs from three innings against Australia, but that lack of form didn’t last long as the South Africa captain went on a run-scoring spree in almost every ODI contest that followed that series.
A pair of unbeaten centuries against Sri Lanka – including a career-best 184 not out in Potchefstroom – and the 25-year-old then made it three centuries in four matches when she hit 135 against India in Bengaluru in June.
Another half-century followed against India, before Wolvaardt finished her 2024 campaign with a trio of good scores against England on home soil in December.
The 23-year-old Sutherland commenced the year with a two-wicket haul in Australia’s victory over India in Mumbai and was then relatively quiet during a three-match series at home against South Africa that the Aussies managed to win 2-1.
Opportunities were scarce for Sutherland during Australia’s white-ball tour of Bangladesh in March, although the talented all-rounder did manage an unbeaten innings of 58 in an easy victory in the series opener in Mirpur.
It wasn’t until the backend of the year in consecutive series against India at home and New Zealand away that Sutherland really shone, with the youngster scoring centuries in consecutive matches against different opponents and claiming Player of the Series honours for her efforts against Harmanpreet Kaur’s side.
Athapaththu didn’t actually make her first ODI appearance of 2024 until April, but she immediately hit the ground running as she contributed scores of 51 and 195 not out in a 1-1 series result against South Africa away from home.
The 34-year-old continued with that rich vein of form into the three-match ODI series against the West Indies, where she managed 130 runs and four wickets as Sri Lanka completed an emphatic 3-0 series sweep.
An innings of 48 and a three-wicket haul with the ball from Sri Lanka’s final ODI match of the year in Belfast saw Athapaththu end her 2024 on a high in ODI cricket.
(IANS)
