Not Shubman Gill! 24-Year-Old Star Wins Player Of The Series Award In India-Zimbabwe T20Is

The five-match T20I series between India and Zimbabwe came to an end on Sunday (July 14), with the world champions winning the final match by 42 runs. Thanks to Sanju Samson’s 58-run knock, India posted a total of 167 runs on the board, which they successfully managed to defend by dismissing the hosts for 125 runs in 18.3 overs. Pacer Mukesh Kumar picked up four wickets for 22 runs in 3.3 overs, and all-rounder Shivam Dube dismissed two batters for 25 runs apart from scoring 26 runs from 12 balls. For his all-round show in the final match of the tour, Dube won the Player of the Match award.

Shubman Gill top-scored in the five-match series with 170 runs to his name, and Mukesh Kumar topped the bowler’s chart with 8 wickets in three matches. But for the Player of the Series award, both of them were ignored, and instead, the top prize was awarded to 24-year-old Washington Sundar.

The spin-bowling all-rounder from Tamil Nadu played in all five matches for India and picked up eight wickets apart from scoring 28 runs with the bat in two innings.

After winning the top prize over the likes of Gill, Mukesh, and Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sundar said, “Good to have finished with a win. After the first game, the conditions were similar to those in South Africa, getting that extra bounce and extra pace. We had enough time to get a lot of information. Lot of takeaways and learnings, I bowled a lot in this series. We had a lot of success as a team.”

The 24-year-old cricketer was part of Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2024 but only got a chance to play two matches in which he was able to pick one wicket.

Despite his forgetful IPL season, Sundar was picked in the Indian squad for the away series against Zimbabwe over the likes of SRH teammate Shahbaz Ahmed, and he lived up to the expectations by producing a super show. He is expected to find a place in India’s T20I team for the upcoming three-match series against Sri Lanka.