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Pakistan’s pace bowling superstar Shaheen Shah Afridi has earned the nomination for the ICC Men’s Player of the Month award for April 2024.

The left-arm pacer ended the recent T20I series at home against New Zealand as the highest wicket-taker with eight wickets in four games at an average of only 10.

Pakistan drew the five-match series with a 2-2 margin after the opening game of the series was washed out in Rawalpindi. Shaheen Shah Afridi, however, looked in supreme touch, with wickets with the new ball in the powerplay and with the old ball in the death overs.

Shaheen Shah Afridi showed a spectacular show against New Zealand

Shaheen Shah Afridi displayed outstanding signs, with less than a month to go for the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, set to start in the United States of America and the West Indies.

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Afridi started the series with a bang, as he picked and cleaned up Tim Robinson on the second ball of the series, before which the game was washed out due to rain. In the second T20I game of the series, Shaheen Shah Afridi managed three wickets in 3.1 overs, giving way to just 13 runs, as one of the wickets was the power-hitting Kiwi batter, Tim Seifert.

He won the Player of the Match award for the performance, as Pakistan grabbed a comfortable seven-wicket victory with 47 balls to spare. In the series-deciding fifth T20I, Shaheen Shah Afridi notched up impressive figures of 4/30 in his four overs.

Two of those wickets were experienced campaigners Tom Blundell and Jimmy Neesham, as Shaheen Shah Afridi grabbed the ‘Player of the Series’ award, helping the hosts secure a nervy nine-run win.

Gerald Erasmus, and Muhammad Waseem among other nominees for the award

Meanwhile, the hard-hitting batter from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Muhammad Waseem was in fine touch in the last month, as he scored the bulk of runs in the ACC Premier Cup 2024, and made his way to a third T20I century.

After beginning the tournament with a first-ball duck, the opener, cracked a 65-run knock in 40 balls against Bahrain, before celebrating a 56-ball 100 against Oman. He smashed six boundaries and seven sixes in that knock as UAE got an easy 55-run victory in the final of the tournament.

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The third player among the nominees was Namibia captain Gerhard Erasmus. He looked in great touch during their last month’s tour to Oman, where they gained a 3-2 victory in the five-match T20I series.

Even though they lost the second game of the series, Erasmus won the ‘Player of the Match’ award with a 58-run knock after his 3/7 figures in three overs.

But his classical knock came during the final game of the series, as the captain smashed an unbeaten 64-run knock in 29 balls, shouldering on a couple of boundaries, and six sixes. Even with the ball in hand, he finished with 2/22 in four overs.

It’ll be interesting to see who among those three persons- Shaheen Shah Afridi, Gerald Erasmus, and Mohammad Waseem achieved the award for April.