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New Delhi, April 8 (Hindustan Reporter) Sri Lankan batsman Kamindu Mendis and England's Maia Boucher have won the ICC Player of the Month awards for March 2024 in the men's and women's categories respectively.
Due to his brilliant batting, Mendis played an important role in giving Sri Lanka an easy victory in the first Test of the ICC World Test Championship match against Bangladesh in Sylhet.
In this match, the Sri Lankan team was struggling after losing five wickets for 57 runs in the first innings, from here Mendis along with Dhananjay de Silva helped Sri Lanka reach a respectable score of 280 runs. He scored his first test century and played a brilliant inning of 102 runs.
After this, Mendis played a brilliant century of 164 runs in 237 balls in the second innings also. Sri Lanka won this match by 328 runs. With his century in the second innings, Mendis became the first player to score two centuries in the same Test while batting at number seven or lower.
On being named the Player of the Month for March, Mendis was quoted by the ICC as saying, “I am extremely pleased to be named the ICC Men's Player of the Month, which I consider an inspiration for my international career. Such recognition motivates us as players to perform better for the team, country and fans. “I also wish all the best to the other two players nominated with me, Mark Adair and Matt Henry, who I consider to be excellent players and good competitors.”
At the same time, thanks to the brilliant performance of ICC Women's Player of the Month Maia Boucher of England, New Zealand was defeated 4-1 in the five-match T20 series at home.
The 25-year-old scored 223 runs at an average of 55.75 in his five T20I matches against New Zealand during the month of March.
She scored an unbeaten 43 in the series opener and along with captain Heather Knight set a challenging score which was easily defended by the England bowlers. His next impressive innings came in the third match, where he scored 71 off 47 balls at Nelson.
In the subsequent decider in Wellington, Boucher scored his highest T20I score of 91 runs from just 56 balls, which included 12 fours and two sixes.
On being selected as the ICC Player of the Month, Boucher said, “First of all, thank you to everyone who voted for me. I am very happy and grateful to my family, staff and my teammates who have supported me while playing at the international level. I feel very honored to win this award and I hope more awards follow. From training over the winter with my coaches at home to transferring the work I've been doing to this series, it's been an amazing few months, so I'm really glad I've been able to perform for the team “