The England Test captain Joe Root and Ireland’s Eimear Richardson have been voted as the winners of the ICC Players of the Month for August 2021.
Both of them won their respective awards, by getting selected out of all the other nominations that included Pakistan’s Shaheen Shah Afridi and India’s Jasprit Bumrah for the men’s category. In the women’s category, Richardson beat Thailand’s Nattaya Boochatham and Gaby Lewis.
Joe Root has won the award due to his extraordinary performance in the Test series against India. He was consistent with his bat as he scored three centuries in four Test matches that he played against India in August.
Through his consistent performances with the bat, Root climbed to the top of MRF Tyres ICC Men’s Test Rankings for batters. Before the start of the series, he had acquired the fifth spot in the ranking. Following his spectacular performance in the home series against India, he climbed to the no 1 spot.
Talking about the women’s category, Ireland’s Eimear Richardson claimed the award for August due to her amazing performances with both bat and ball. She won the Player of the Tournament in Europe Qualifiers of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.
She was able to produce some amazing figures with the ball in the tournament that included spells of 2/6, 2/24, 2/0 and 1/22. With the bat, her most impactful knock came against the Netherlands in their final match, when she scored a 49-ball 53, which helped them clinch the victory.
Reacting to her award Richardson said, “It was very exciting to be nominated for the ICC Women’s Player of the Month for August and to now be voted as the winner is just so amazing and humbling.”
“It was great to contribute to overall team performances at the European Qualifiers and hopefully we have done enough to make the next stage and compete on a global level again.”