ICC announces 'ICC Player of the Month'

[hamzi]

These awards are a great initiative which gives the smaller teams the chance to gain stardom but just like every other award in cricket this too will loose its value once the bias for India kicks in. While i do believe a lot of the awards Indians win are earned due to their superior performances, a lot are won due to not so superior performances. For anyone disagreeing go check the awards:

A similar award named the ICC fans player of the year was launched for about 5 years where every year atleast 1+ Indians were nominated and won most of the times. Some were nominated due to performances while some were nominated due to stature. No Pakistani was ever nominated for obvious reasons. Heck even Bhuvneshwar Kumar was nominated in a year he did nothing and actually won the awards. The Sangakkara started winning due to his worldwide love and so the award was scrapped as Indians had competition now.

There have been some other laughable nominations or even wins for Indians in the ICC awards. Jadeja was once nominated in the ODI team of the year when he played a total of 3-4 matches and score less than 50 runs to go with 2-3 wickets i think. Ashwin had an amazing year in Tests and was rewarded with a deserved Test Player of the Year award to go with the Overall Player of the year which was a joke as he had played 1 or 2 non test matches that year. Ajmal was not even nominated for the award in the year where he took 120+ wickets when the next guy was with 80 odd wickets. There are tons of other cases but you get the point.

Similarly the Cricinfo awards are a joke where Performance is rewarded when an Indian Performs and Situation is rewarded when an Indian does not score.

Pant & Ashwin had great months and maybe even deserved these awards but wait a few month and youl realize that is not the case and these awards dont reward performance they reward somehting else. I mean Bhuvneshwar is nominated on the back of 10 wickets in 8 matches at home but Rizwan isnt on the back of 2 MOS awards in a month? Just look at the monthly awards in football where performance is rewarded irrespective of your name, You score more you win more!

I used to be a crazy follower of these awards and kept multiple sheets for them but have lost the need to do so now due to the bias. Dont get me wrong i love Indian cricket and some of its players, i just dont love abuse of power.

Regards

[MenInG]

The International Cricket Council (ICC) today announced the winners of the ICC Player of the Month Awards for March which recognise and celebrate the best performances from both male and female cricketers across all forms of international cricket throughout the year.
India’s Bhuvneshwar Kumar won the ICC Men’s Player of the Month for March 2021, for his impressive performances in India’s recently concluded series against England. He was the standout bowler on either side in the white-ball series and was chosen the winner for the month by fans and the ICC voting academy.

Reacting to the win Bhuvneshwar Kumar said, “After what seemed like a really long and painful gap, I was delighted to be playing for India again. I used the time away to work on my fitness and skill and I am happy to be back taking wickets for my country. I would like to thank each and every person who helped me in this journey starting from my family and friends and my teammates. Also, a special thank you to the ICC voting academy and all the fans who voted for me and made me the ICC Men’s Player of the Month for March.”

Commenting on Kumar’s performance in March, VVS Laxman representing the ICC Voting Academy said: “Bhuvi missed nearly a year and a half of international cricket through multiple unrelated injuries, but you’d never have guessed. He was outstanding in both the PowerPlay overs and at the death in the white-ball formats against a powerful, aggressive England batting line-up. Economical and penetrative, he was instrumental in shaping Indian triumphs in both series.”

From the South African camp, Lizelle Lee who played four ODIs against India where she scored a century and two half-centuries to move to the top of the MRF Tyres ICC Women’s ODI Batting Rankings, was deservingly named the ICC Women’s Player of the Month for March 2021.

Reacting to the win Lizelle Lee said: “I am happy and honoured to receive this award. Such accolades are a great way to keep me motivated and to continue to work even harder on my game. A big thank you to my teammates for their support as this would never have been possible without them."

Commenting on Lee’s performance in March, Ramiz Raja representing the ICC Voting Academy added: “It is not easy scoring those many runs in alien batting conditions. It is always a challenge to adjust from bouncy pitches to slow low turning tracks and Lizelle did magnificently.”

[jeeteshssaxena]

Bccicc

[hoshiarpurexpress]

A useless gimmick award by ICC. No value. Performance over a year is worth the weight to be appreciated and will reflect in the rankings of teams/players. That is all should be there to it.

May be ICC is trying to engage some younger fans.

[TheNightWatchman]

Imagine if Fifa gave out a golden boot every month. What. a stupid meaningless award

[Ab Fan]

What a useless award this is.

January 2021- Pant
February 2021- Ashwin
March 2021- Bhuvaneswar

[hoshiarpurexpress]

What a useless award this is.

January 2021- Pant
February 2021- Ashwin
March 2021- Bhuvaneswar

It will be look like the Indian X11 in progression by the end of the year

[TheNightWatchman]

It will be look like the Indian X11 in progression by the end of the year

The 12th in December will be Ish Sodi just to tick off the Pakistanis

[Cover Drive Six]

April 2021 should be Markram.

[MesonK]

April - Prithivi Shaw or any Indian will do