The International Cricket Council (ICC) has presented the Player of the Month award for male cricketer for the month of August to Pakistan team captain Babar Azam. Babar had performed excellently with the bat in August 2023. He is currently the number 1 batsman in the ICC ODI rankings. Apart from Babar, Shadab Khan and Nicholas Puran were also among the players nominated for Player of the Month.
Babar Azam showed a brilliant performance with the bat in August 2023 by scoring 264 runs in 4 innings at an average of 64. Babar also played two half-centuries and a century. Under Babar’s captaincy, Pakistan won the three-match ODI series against Afghanistan 3-0 in August itself.
Pakistan captain Babar Azam was previously named the ICC Player of the Month in April 2021 and March 2022. Babar expressed his happiness on winning the award and in his statement to ICC said that the last month has been very wonderful for my team and I. It was great to play in front of Pakistan crowd at the Asia Cup and I also scored 150 points. I will try to continue this form as the Asia Cup is underway and after that there isn’t much time left before the ODI World Cup starts.
The Pakistan team had made a great start in the 2023 Asia Cup but suffered a heavy 228-run defeat against India in the Super 4. In this match, Pakistan had a big target of 357 runs but the team managed to score only 128 runs. Babar was eliminated after facing 24 balls in this match and scoring just 10 runs. Now the Pakistan team will play their next match in the Asia Cup against Sri Lanka on September 14.