Mohammed Siraj, Shubman Gill earn nominations for ICC Player of the Month award for January

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Image credit: PTI

Indian speedster Mohammed Siraj and young opener Shubman Gill were nominated on Tuesday for the ICC Player of the Month award, thanks to their celestial show in respective departments in January. Fellow opener Devon Conway of New Zealand, who has gotten off to a fine start to the year, thanks to three centuries and a couple of half-centuries across formats, is the third contender for the prize.

After a productive 2022, Gill pictured his batting prowess in a couple of limited-overs home series last month against Sri Lanka and New Zealand, while Siraj was the leader of India's pace attack, with excellence in One-Day Internationals (ODIs) recently, showcasing his intellect invariably, specifically with the new ball, as prime pacer Jasprit Bumrah continued to remain absent, struggling with his fitness.

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Gill made his Twenty20 International (T20I) in the opening game versus Lanka in Mumbai, scoring just seven, before another single-digit in the next contest. He scored a stable 46 in the final fixture in Rajkot. Gill then enlisted scores of 70, 21 and 116 in the three ODIs versus the island nation.

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However, Gill's stunning exhibition in the opening ODI versus NZ in Hyderabad was the show-stopper. The 23-year-old bashed 208 off 149 deliveries in a fantastic knock on a day when his teammates failed to surpass the score of 28. Gill reached his 200 with three successive sixes off pacer Lockie Ferguson and became the youngest to go to the landmark in the format.

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Gill backed up the knock with scores of an unbeaten 40 and 112 in his following couple of innings, closing out the series with a total of 360 runs, the joint-highest by any batter in a three-match ODI series, as he equalled Babar Azam's record versus the Windies in 2016-17.

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Elsewhere, Siraj's superb form was rewarded in the ICC Men's Player Rankings, where he has been crowned the number one bowler in the ODIs. He attained 2/30 in seven overs in the high-scoring opening ODI versus Lanka in Guwahati before backing it up with 3/30 and 4/32 in his next couple of engagements, respectively, terminating as the series' leading wicket-taker.

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Siraj then held 4/46 in 10 overs in a high-scoring nail-biter versus the Kiwis at his home ground of Hyderabad before returning with a hard-to-believe spell of 6-1-10-1 in a bright opening blast in the second ODI in Raipur.