Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan was recognized as the best. He was selected as the ICC Cricketer of the Month for March. Rwanda’s Henriette Ishimwe has been named the Female Cricketer of the Month for March.

The ICC notification said, “Shakib Al Hasan has been named the best cricketer of the month for March for his great contribution in the series win against England and Ireland. This is the second time he has won the best cricketer award. Shakib himself is excited to be selected as the ICC’s best cricketer. He said, “I am honored to win this award. I would like to thank those experts who supported me. This recognition is very valuable to me as several cricketers have had great performances in the month of March.” He further said, “If I had to pick the best of the performances of the last month, I would say the T20 series win against England was the best. We performed well as a team. We played well in all departments. I was able to concentrate on my game better because everyone did well.”

The Bangladesh Test and T20 team captain is in great form since the England series. Shakib scored two fifties in the one-day series. In the second match in Chittagong, the left-handed all-rounder also scored 75 runs in 71 balls with the bat. He took 4 wickets for 35 runs. He got success with bat and ball in the three-match T20 series. Shakib’s innings of 93 runs off 89 balls came from the bat in the first one-day match against Ireland. He maintained that rhythm in the T20 series against the Irish and played an aggressive inning of 38 runs off 24 balls in a match. Later bowled the scheduled 4 overs and took 5 wickets with 22 runs.

Shakib was up against New Zealand’s Kane Williamson and UAE’s Asif Khan for the March Cricketer of the Month award. Former Sri Lanka cricketer Farveez Maharoof said the reason for choosing Shakib as the best cricketer is, “Shakib was selected for his excellent all-round performance. Shakib’s contribution to Bangladesh’s success against teams like England is crucial.”

Although he was supposed to play IPL for Kolkata Knight Riders, he pulled himself out. The Bangladeshi all-rounder has been involved in several controversies in his cricket life. He had to be exiled. And once again all the controversy was dwarfed by his cricketing prowess.