Rajasthan Royals’ young superstar Yashasvi Jaiswal has been nominated for the ICC Men’s Player of the Month for February 2024, following his spectacular show with the bat against England last month.
Jaiswal almost single-handedly turned the Indian cricket team’s 1-0 deficit in the Test series against England to a 3-1 unassailable lead, with a record-breaking scoring spree.
The 22-year-old Jaiswal has amassed 655 runs in four Test matches so far, coming at a sensational average of 93.57. In comparison, the next best is Shubman Gill with 342 runs.
The highlight of Jaiswal’s onslaught was the back-to-back double hundreds he scored in the second and third Test.
Jaiswal scored 209 in Visakhapatnam and followed it up with an unbeaten 214 in Rajkot, for his highest score. India won the second Test by 106 runs and third by 434 runs. Jaiswal now has three Test tons to his name in just eight matches.
Even when India lost the opening Test, Jaiswal scored 80 in the first innings.
The stellar outings have catapulted Jaiswal’s name to the elite league which has Sunil Gavaskar, Virat Kohli, Dilip Sardesai and Rahul Dravid as the only Indian batters to score more than 600 runs in a Test series.
Among Indians, only Gavaskar has scored more than 700 runs in a Test series, doing it twice in his career. First scoring 774 runs in 1970-71 then 732 in 1978-79, both against West Indies.
Yashasvi Jaiswal will play the fifth and final Test of the series on March 7 at Dharamsala. He is 120 runs away from breaking Gavaskar’s record.
This is the first time Jaiswal has been named for the ICC Player of the Month award since making his international debut in July last year.
The other nominees for the ICC Men’s Player of the Month for February 2024 are New Zealand’s Kane Williamson and Sri Lanka’s Pathum Nissanka.
Following the fifth India vs England Test match, Jaiswal will link up with the Rajasthan Royals squad for Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.
Jaiswal scored 625 runs last IPL season and was the highest run-scorer for us.The Royals begin their IPL 2024 campaign against Lucknow Super Giants on March 24.
