Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu has been shortlisted for the ICC Women’s Player of the Month award for September, on the strength of a month in which she was among the leading performers with both bat and ball.
The International Cricket Council named three nominees: Athapaththu and two India players, opener Shafali Verma and left-arm spinner Sree Charani. The award is decided by a public and panel vote.
Across seven T20Is in September, Athapaththu scored 226 runs at an average of 37.66 and a strike rate of 140.37, and took 14 wickets at 10.21 with an economy rate of 6.08.
The spell that defined the month
Her standout performance came early in the Women’s Asia Cup, when she returned figures of 7 for 5 against Indonesia, including a hat-trick. The ICC said the spell was the fifth-best bowling performance in Women’s T20Is at the time, and only the sixth instance of any bowler taking seven or more wickets in a Women’s T20I.
Athapaththu then top-scored for Sri Lanka at the Asian Games, making 175 runs in three innings — 63 against Malaysia, followed by an unbeaten 83 from 50 balls against Pakistan in the semi-final that carried Sri Lanka into the gold-medal match. She also took three wickets as Sri Lanka finished with silver.
Sri Lanka reached the Women’s Asia Cup semi-finals and the Asian Games final during the month, losing both deciding fixtures to India.
The competition
Verma scored 360 runs at 72.00 with a strike rate of 184.61 and took six wickets, finishing as the Asia Cup’s leading run-scorer with 236 runs. Charani claimed 18 wickets in seven T20Is at an average of 4.83, including 4 for 20 in the Asia Cup final against Sri Lanka, and ended September on 817 rating points — the highest any woman has reached in the ICC T20I bowling rankings, passing Australia’s Megan Schutt.
Sri Lanka took the men’s award for August, when Sonal Dinusha was named Player of the Month after scoring twin centuries following on against India.
