The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday (February 13) named India batter Shubman Gill as the winner of the player of the month award for January.
Gill pipped the likes of India pacer Mohammed Siraj and New Zealand opener Devon Conway to bag the award.
On the back of a fine run in ODIs in 2022 and a fruitful Test tour of Bangladesh in December, where he registered his maiden Test hundred, Shubman was handed maiden T20I cap in the first T20I against Sri Lanka on January 3 in Mumbai.
On debut, the 23-year-old scored only seven runs before another single-digit score (5) in the second game in Pune followed. His steady 46 in the third T20I in Rajkot set up India’s series-clinching win.
The lanky right-hander then aggregated 207 from three ODI innings against the island nation, including 70 and 116 in the first and third game respectively.
In the next white-ball series against New Zealand at home, Shubman Gill stole the show. The right-hander smashed 208 off 149 balls in the opening ODI in Hyderabad and became the youngest batter to score a double ton in the 50-over format.
With this knock, he also joined the elite club of Indian batters featuring Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma (thrice) and Ishan Kishan, who have slammed a double hundred in ODIs.
Gill rounded off the series with knocks of 40* and 112, helping India clinch the series 3-0. His aggregate of 360 runs is the joint-highest ever for anyone in a three-match bilateral ODI series, equalling Babar Azam’s record against the West Indies in 2016-17.
During the T20I series against the Kiwis, Shubman failed to make a mark in the first two games, registering scores of 7 and 11. However, he dazzled the crowd with a sublime knock of 126* in just 63 balls in the third T20I as India sweep the series.
With it, he also became the fifth India batter to score a hundred in each of the three international formats, alongside Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, and Virat Kohli.
(With ICC Inputs)
