Evergreen Australian star Ellyse Perry and her batting prodigy teammate Phoebe Litchfield are in line to scoop honours at the annual International Cricket Council Awards after their stellar 2023 seasons.
Perry, twice named as the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy winner as the ICC's Women’s Cricketer of the Year in 2017 and 2019, has been shortlisted for 2023 Women's T20I Cricketer of the Year after helping Australia to another World Cup triumph in South Africa.
And fresh from being named player of the series in the one-day international sweep over India, 20-year-old Litchfield - 13 years Perry's junior - is one of four players nominated for the award of Emerging Women’s Cricketer of the Year.
Allrounder Perry, who didn't actually have the greatest World Cup by her lofty standards, still excelled throughout 2023 in the short format, ending the year by putting together scores of 51no, 34, 70 and 40 against England and West Indies.
In total over the year, Perry scored 319 runs in 10 T20 innings, averaging 45.57 and at a healthy strike-rate of 151.18, with 11 sixes to her name too as she extended her attacking horizons.
Her brilliant fielding too remained a stand-out feature of the women's game, including the dazzling boundary stop to save two runs in the World Cup semi-final against India.
The others on the shortlist are England spinner Sophie Ecclestone, West Indian star allrounder Hayley Matthews and Sri Lanka's Chamari Athapaththu.
If Perry wins the award, which will be announced later this month, she will maintain Australia's domination of the T20 player of the year category, following wins for Beth Mooney (2017), Alyssa Healy (2018 and 2019) and Tahlia McGrath in 2022.
Litchfield, who's long been tipped for greatness, will be favourite to lift the emerging player gong after a brilliant breakthrough year.
The left-handed opener compiled 642 runs across the three formats of the game, including a first ODI century against Ireland and an unbeaten 52 off 19 balls against the West Indies in October.
She ended the year with two half-centuries in Mumbai in the India ODIs series before starting 2024 in even more stylish fashion with a brilliant hundred at the Wankhede Stadium.
Litchfield faces competition from three other rising stars - Bangladesh’s Marufa Akter, England’s Lauren Bell and Scotland’s Darcey Carter.
The men's T20 shortlist features 2022 winner, India's Suryakumar Yadav, New Zealander Mark Chapman, Zimbabwe's Sikandar Raza and Uganda's Alpesh Ramjani, who inspired his side to qualify for their first-ever World Cup.
Gerald Coetzee (South Africa), Yashasvi Jaiswal (India), Dilshan Madushanka (Sri Lanka) and Rachin Ravindra (New Zealand) are the quartet competing for the men's emerging player award, while nominees for Test and ODI awards will be released later this week.
