The cricket calendar for the year 2025 is already underway in style, with a couple of historic bilateral series and two of the most anticipated tournaments, the ongoing 8th edition of the multi-format Women’s Ashes down under and the Women’s U19 T20 World Cup.
Amidst all the action, let’s take a pause and shift our focus to the ICC Awards, an event where players who performed exceptionally well at the international level across formats in 2024 are rewarded across different categories. In this article, we will have a look at the Indian vice-captain, Smriti Mandhana who has been named as the ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year 2024.
The 28-year-old elegant left-handed opening batter Smriti Mandhana, had a stellar year with the bat in hand in the ODI format for India in 2024. She amassed 747 runs at a strike rate of 95.15 and averaged in the high 50s (57.46) in 13 innings with the bat, topping the run-scoring charts in ODIs in 2024. She cracked a record 4 centuries, the most by a woman in a calendar year in ODIs, along with her 3 half-centuries in the format for her side.
Her best performance with the bat for India in the ODI format last year came on 19th June 2024 in the 2nd ODI of the series against South Africa when she scored a sensational century (136 off 120 balls) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, in Bengaluru. It is also her career-best score in the format to date. She also turned her arm over with the ball and was successful at it, as she managed to get her maiden wicket at the international level when she removed the former South African skipper Sune Luus in the same game.
She also surpassed former Indian skipper and legend Mithali Raj (7) in terms of the most number of centuries scored by an Indian in Women’s ODIs. Smriti Mandhana (10) is currently joint 3rd highest alongside England’s Tammy Beaumont (10) in terms of the most number of centuries in a career in Women’s ODIs.
The Indian vice-captain Smriti Mandhana surpassed some of the other strong contenders of the likes of the young Australian all-rounder Annabel Sutherland, South African skipper Laura Wolvaardt, and Sri Lankan skipper Chamari, Athapaththu to clinch her 2nd ODI Cricketer of the Year award. 2018 was the previous occasion when she was named the ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year Award, for the first time, which also makes her the only Indian woman to bag the prestigious honour on a couple of occasions.
The year 2024, also turned out to be a breakthrough year for her, especially on a personal note in the ODI format. She has carried her purple patch with the bat in the year 2025, and the Women in Blue would be hoping she continues to churn out huge amounts of runs, with the upcoming 13th edition of the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup 2025, which will be hosted by India in October later this year.
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