Kamindu Mendis, Sam Ayub and Gus Atkinson
ICC Emerging Player of The Year 2024: The year 2024 is on the verge of ending. In such a situation, ICC has shortlisted the names of 4 players who made their debut this year. Now ICC will approve the name of any one of these 4 players and will be announced as the winner of the award. Actually, ICC has shortlisted 4 players for Emerging Player of the Year 2024. These include England’s Gus Atkinson, Pakistan’s Sam Ayub, West Indies’ Shamar Joseph and Sri Lanka’s Kamindu Mendis. Out of these 4 players, 3 players made their debut this year. As debutant players, the performance of all these players was excellent this year. Although Kamindu Mendis was successful in making his debut in 2022, his career took off after 2 years.
Atkinson created a stir in the debut test
Gus Atkinson made his Test debut for England this year and took 52 wickets. In this way he became the bowler taking the second highest Test wicket in his debut calendar year. Atkinson, who made his debut in James Anderson’s last Test match, wreaked havoc with the ball in his very first match. The 26-year-old player gave a career-best performance in his debut Test by taking 7 wickets against West Indies at Lord’s. After this, he became the fourth best performing debutant bowler in the history of Test cricket by taking five wickets in the second innings. Apart from this, he also created a sensation by scoring a century against Sri Lanka.
Sam Ayub wreaked havoc with the bat
Pakistan’s 22-year-old batsman Sam Ayub had an amazing debut this year. Ayub played an important role in Pakistan’s victories in Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. His two centuries in South Africa earned him the Player of the Series award. On the strength of Ayub, Pakistan team managed to win the 3-match ODI series 3-0 at home to South Africa.
Mendis equaled Don Bradman
The year 2024 was memorable for the Sri Lankan team as well as Kamindu Mendis. Kamindu Mendis, who returned to the team after 2 years, started this year with a century against Bangladesh and then made a place in Don Bradman’s club by playing big innings continuously. He has equaled Sir Don Bradman’s record of scoring 1000 Test runs in just 13 innings. This year, he scored 1049 runs in 9 Test matches, which included five centuries and three half-centuries.
Shamar Joseph created a sensation
The West Indies player who made the most headlines this year is Shamar Joseph. The 22-year-old fast bowler made a brilliant debut and took 5 wickets against Australia. After this, he created a stir by taking 7 wickets in the second innings against Australia. Thanks to this performance of Shamar Joseph, West Indies managed to defeat Australia by 8 runs. In this way West Indies could get its first Test win in Australia since 1997.
