Australia's young batting ace Phoebe Litchfield has been recognised as the outstanding rising talent in the international game, winning the ICC Women’s Emerging Cricketer of the Year award.
The 20-year-old opener has been rewarded for her magnificent 12-month campaign in 2023 as she compiled over 500 runs in all forms of the international game, a run of form that she's already enhanced at the start of this year.
The left-hander won the award against a shortlist that featured Bangladesh teenager Marufa Akter, England quick Lauren Bell and Scotland allrounder Darcey Carter.
From the moment the young batter from Orange, NSW reeled off a couple of back-to-back unbeaten half-centuries at home against Pakistan - even though it wasn't enough to earn her selection in Australia's T20 World Cup-winning squad - she looked every inch the batting prodigy she's long been held up to be.
After making her Test debut in the Ashes, she then scored her first ODI century with an unbeaten, player-of-the-match 106no against Ireland in Dublin, followed in October by a prodigious unbeaten 52 from only 19 deliveries in her first T20I of the year against the West Indies.
But hopes of a double triumph for Australia's women in the annual ICC awards were dashed when the shortlisted Ellyse Perry was beaten to the T20I Women's Player of the Year award by West Indian allrounder Hayley Matthews.
Ash Gardner, though, is still in line to lift the Women's ODI Player of the Year award, which will be announced on Thursday.
Matthews, quite brilliant in the series in Australia, became just the second player from the West Indies to win the honour after Stafanie Taylor in 2015.
The men's T20I player of the year for the second year running was India's Suryakumar Yadav, who averaged nearly 50 at a strike-rate beyond 150.
The Men's Emerging Cricketer of the Year gong went to young New Zealand allrounder Rachin Ravindra, a shoo-in after his exceptional World Cup in which he scored 578 runs.
"It's obviously a very special feeling. It has been a pretty whirlwind last year," the 24-year-old Ravindra said on accepting the award after a year in which he scored 911 white-ball runs.
