Devon Conway, Sophie Ecclestone win ICC Player of the Month awards in respective categories

Devon Conway L and Sophie Ecclestone. Picture Credit: Twitter &

New Zealand opener Devon Conway has won the ICC Player of the Month award for June in the men's category. Meanwhile, in the women's category, England's left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone clinched the same award. Both the players were in terrific touch in the past month and deservedly got the honour.

Conway was pitted against Kyle Jamieson and Quinton de Kock for the monthly award. The Kiwi southpaw has been judged as the winner among the three, courtesy his sensational double-century on Test debut. Playing his maiden Test innings that too against a quality side like England, Conway had scored 200. In the following game, he scored 80 in the first innings and in the World Test Championship final, he registered a valuable half-century in the first innings.

Ecclestone, on the other hand, was equally impressive as he defeated Indian all-rounder Sneh Rana and the country's opening batter Shafali Verma for the coveted award. The left-arm orthodox returned figures of 4/88 and 4/118 in the one-off Test against the India Women. She then returned figures of 3/40 and 3/33 in the first two ODI games against the Women in Blue in the month of June.

Here is what the winners have to say:

“I’m truly honoured to win this award. That I have received it for my performances in Test cricket makes it extra special. Scoring a double century at Lord’s was a dream come true for me and to have also been able to contribute to our win over India in the ICC World Test Championship final is something that I know I will proudly look back on in years to come,” said Devon Conway after winning the award.

Meanwhile, Ecclestone said: “It’s really nice to win this award. It’s after a period in which we’ve played all three formats so it feels good to be recognised for my performances in the Test and the white-ball series.”

“We’ve been happy as a team how we’ve performed across this series. We would have liked to have won the Test match but hopefully, we can clinch the multi-format series. It’s all crucial preparation for the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand when we’ll be defending the title we won in 2017, and we feel in a decent place as a team,” she added.

Notably, the T20I series between England Women and India Women is evenly poised at 1-1 with the last match of the series to take place on Wednesday, July 14 in Chelmsford.