DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates – Fol­low­ing his ruth­less per­for­mance with both ball and bat for the West In­dies in Pak­istan, Bar­ba­di­an left-arm spin­ner Jomel War­ri­can was crowned The In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) Men’s Play­er of the Month for Jan­u­ary 2025.

The 32-year-old edged out stiff com­pe­ti­tion from Pak­istan’s No­man Ali and In­dia’s Varun Chakravarthy, se­cur­ing the ac­co­lade through a com­bi­na­tion of votes from glob­al fans and a spe­cial­ist pan­el of ICC Hall of Famers, for­mer in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers, and me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

War­ri­can’s ex­cep­tion­al month saw him claim 19 wick­ets in just two Test match­es at a stag­ger­ing av­er­age of 9.00, ce­ment­ing his sta­tus as one of the most im­pact­ful play­ers of the se­ries.

War­ri­can’s bril­liance was on full dis­play in the first Test in Mul­tan, where he wreaked hav­oc on Pak­istan’s bat­ting line­up in spin-friend­ly con­di­tions. Af­ter tak­ing three wick­ets for 69 runs in the first in­nings, he de­liv­ered a ca­reer-best spell of sev­en for 32 in the sec­ond in­nings. His dom­i­nance was so com­plete that he al­so con­tributed to two runouts.

The sec­ond Test fur­ther high­light­ed War­ri­can’s all-round abil­i­ties. With the West In­dies reel­ing at 95 for nine in the first in­nings, he stepped up with an un­beat­en 36 runs, form­ing a cru­cial part­ner­ship with Ke­mar Roach to push the team’s to­tal to 163.

With the ball, he claimed four for 43 and five for 27 across the two in­nings, while al­so adding 18 valu­able runs in the sec­ond in­nings. His hero­ics were in­stru­men­tal in se­cur­ing a his­toric 120-run vic­to­ry for the West In­dies, earn­ing him the Play­er of the Se­ries award.

Re­flect­ing on his achieve­ment, War­ri­can ex­pressed his grat­i­tude and pride. “It’s an ho­n­our to win this award. One of my goals for this year was my first five-for in Test crick­et, but I did not think it would be this grand. I see this as one small step in my crick­et­ing ca­reer, and I look for­ward to many more. I promised my cap­tain some­thing spe­cial in this se­ries, es­pe­cial­ly when my fa­ther, my biggest sup­port­er, pre­dict­ed a phe­nom­e­nal per­for­mance for me.”

With this recog­ni­tion, War­ri­can be­comes the first West In­di­an to win the ICC Men’s Play­er of the Month award since fel­low spin­ner Gu­dakesh Motie in May 2024.

CMC