Sonal Dinusha named ICC Player of the Month for August
Sri Lanka CricketNews article
Sri Lanka's 25-year-old Sonal Dinusha has beaten England's Ollie Robinson and Bangladesh's Hasan Mahmud to win the International Cricket Council (ICC) Player of the Month award as the standout performer in international cricket during August.
Sonal was nominated for the award on the back of his outstanding performances in Test cricket during August, and the ICC officially named him Player of the Month for August the day before yesterday (on the 17th). Notably, this is the first time Sonal Dinusha has received the ICC Player of the Month award.
Having played only five Tests so far, Sonal has already made a remarkable impact as a batter in that short Test career. In nine innings across five matches he has amassed 606 runs, including three centuries and two half-centuries.
A striking feature of Sonal's achievements is that 410 of those runs came in just two matches, in the recently concluded Test series against India.
In the first Test in Galle, Sonal scored 100 in the first innings and followed it with 84 in the second. Then, in the second Test at the SSC grounds in Colombo, his bat produced 103 and an unbeaten 133.
The unbeaten 133 in the second innings of that match is also Sonal Dinusha's highest score in an innings in his Test career to date. Consistently among the runs throughout the series, he finished the two matches with 410 runs at an impressive average of 140.00. Sonal Dinusha was also named Player of the Match in the second Test.
Sonal, who earned his Test cap against Bangladesh in June 2025, has now scored 606 runs in Tests at a batting average of 86.57. In the latest Test batting rankings he sits in 24th place.
Alongside Sonal Dinusha, England's 32-year-old right-arm medium pacer Ollie Robinson and Bangladesh's 26-year-old right-arm medium pacer Hasan Mahmud were also nominated for the ICC Player of the Month award for August.
However, on the strength of his consistent performances with the bat against India, Sonal Dinusha edged out those two contenders to bring the ICC Player of the Month award for August to Sri Lanka.
Sonal Dinusha has not been in Sri Lanka's Test setup for long, and this award further confirms how he has made the most of the opportunities that have come his way to capture the attention of the international cricketing world in a very short time.
Based on Sri Lanka Cricket reporting