Marufa in the run for 2023 Emerging Cricketer

Bangladesh women's cricket team pacer, Marufa Akter, was a breakout cricketer in the previous year and her impressive efforts saw her making it among the nominees for the ICC Women's Emerging Cricketer of the Year award, revealed by the global cricket's governing body on Wednesday. 

Marufa had only played a handful of international matches prior to February's ICC Women's T20 World Cup, but the teenager made an instant impression in her first major ICC tournament.

The right-armer caused a major scare in Sri Lanka's batting order as she picked up two wickets in consecutive balls and three for the match while collecting impressive figures of 3/23 in just her third T20I contest.

Marufa then got the prized scalp of Beth Mooney in her next match at the T20 World Cup when taking on powerhouse Australia, before finishing the tournament with a total of four wickets and a tidy economy rate of 6.31.

The 18-year-old further impressed in white-ball matches on home soil against India during the middle of the year and became one of the first players picked in Bangladesh's side towards the end of 2023 during series against Pakistan and South Africa.

While hard to top Marufa's three-wicket haul against SrI Lanka at the T20 World Cup, the seamer produced an even more impressive performance when bowling her team to victory in the first ODI against India in Mirpur in July.

Bangladesh only managed a miserly 152 with the bat and had to bowl India out to have any chance of victory and Marufa picked up four massive wickets to guide her side to a memorable 40-run (DLS method) victory.

Marufa's figures of 4/29 that day remain her best in international cricket so far, but if she continues on her upward trend it's likely there will be more big hauls to come.

Alongside Marufa, Australia's Phoebe Litchfield, England's Lauren Bell, and Darcey Carter of Scotland were the other nominees.