Proteas batter Lizelle Lee has been nominated for the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year award.
Tammy Beaumont (England), Smriti Mandhana (India) and Gaby Lewis (Ireland) were also nominated.
Lee was in sensational white-ball form throughout the year, particularly in the ODIs where she finished as the highest run-getter in 2021 with 632 runs in 11 matches as well as the top-ranked women’s ODI batter in the ICC rankings.
Lee’s 2021 started off with a duck against Pakistan in the first ODI of the three-match series but the opening batter made up with two scores of 40-plus in the next two matches as South Africa completed a clean sweep.
Lee was in great form in the ODI leg of the Indian tour, where she scored two fifties and a hundred in four matches. South Africa won the series 4-1 and Lee was awarded the Player of the Series for her 288 runs. She then scored another fantastic fifty in the second T20I against India, helping her team wrap up the series with a game in hand.
Lee played a starring role in the second T20I against the West Indies with a 52-ball 75. She finished the tour with three fifties in five matches in the ODI series, which South Africa clinched 4-1.
