India’s batting sensation Shubhman Gill, who has been in scintillating form across formats, has been named the winner of the ICC Men’s Player of the Month award for January 2023. Nominated alongside New Zealand’s Devon Conway and fellow countryman Mohammed Siraj, Gill bagged the honours for a brilliant run in white-ball cricket in January. 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, Gill was rewarded with a maiden T20I cap during the three-match home series against Sri Lanka, where he managed scores of 7, 5 and 46. He then aggregated 207 from three ODI innings against the island nation, including 70 and 116 in the first and the third game respectively. His standout knock though came in the first of three ODIs against New Zealand in Hyderabad, where he smashed 208 off 149 on a day when none of his teammates crossed 28, to power India to a match-winning score of 349/8 in what turned out to be a nail-biting thriller. Gill struck 19 fours and nine sixes in an enterprising knock, getting to the 200-run milestone with three successive maximums off Lockie Ferguson. He became the fifth Indian to register an ODI double-hundred, after Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma (thrice) and Ishan Kishan. The 23-year-old rounded off the series with scores of 40* and 112 – the latter being
his fourth ODI ton to go with five fifties in 21 innings to date – as India swept the Blackcaps 3-0.
Gill’s aggregate of 360 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.
After underwhelming returns in the first two T20Is against New Zealand, Gill smashed a 126* off just 63 deliveries in the third match in Ahmedabad to extend an enviable run. With it, he became the fifth India batter to score a hundred in each of the three international formats, alongside Tendulkar, Rohit, Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli.
Gill is currently a part of the India Test squad for the ongoing four-match home series against Australia, which India leads 1-0 following their innings and 132-run win in the first Test in Nagpur. (ANI)
