Greaves took five wickets in five maiden overs, and West Indies have both ICC awards for July
The ICC’s July Player of the Month awards went to a first-time winner and a record-setter, both from the Caribbean. Only three other countries have swept a month since the awards began.
Aug 19, 2026
Justin Greaves had never won an ICC monthly award. Hayley Matthews has now won five, more than any other woman in the game. On 18 August the ICC handed both of them the Player of the Month prize for July, and West Indies became the fifth country to take the men’s and women’s awards in the same month.
Greaves batted for 325 balls, then bowled five maidens that all took wickets
The all-rounder’s July began at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound, where he made 180 from 325 deliveries against Sri Lanka. West Indies had been staring at a first-innings deficit; Greaves and Shai Hope batted them out of it, the match was drawn, and a series that West Indies led 1-0 after an innings win in June stayed won. It was their first Test series victory over Sri Lanka since 2003. Greaves took player of the match and player of the series.
Pakistan came next, to the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba. Greaves took 5 for 27 in the first innings and 2 for 12 in the second, West Indies won by 90 runs, and he collected another player-of-the-match award.
The five-for is the part that will outlive the result. All five wickets came in consecutive maiden overs, five overs in a row in which Pakistan scored nothing and lost a batter. No bowler on record has done that in a Test match.
Harry Brook and Tanzid Hasan were the other two nominees.
Matthews chased 270 in a record stand
Matthews spent July in Ireland, where West Indies won all three ODIs. In the first, at Bready on 10 July, she opened the batting and was still there at the end on 159 from 123 balls, sharing a record opening stand of 258 with Realeanna Grimmond to see off a target of 270. Only two women have made a bigger score in a successful ODI chase, and no West Indian has.
She scored a hundred in the second game too, adding 158 with Stafanie Taylor to chase down 242 and settle the series with a match to spare. Across the three matches she made 265 runs at 132.50, struck at 117.25, and took seven wickets at 17.57. They were ICC Women’s Championship fixtures, so the points count towards World Cup qualification.
Nat Sciver-Brunt and Harshitha Samarawickrama were the other nominees. Matthews’ fifth award is more than any other woman cricketer has won since the scheme started in January 2021.
The double, and who else has managed it
A country sweeping both awards has happened only five times in five and a half years. India have two of them, Sri Lanka and South Africa one each, and now West Indies. The awards are a monthly popularity-and-form exercise rather than a trophy, but the month behind this one was real enough: a men’s side that beat Sri Lanka and Pakistan at home inside six weeks, and a women’s side that won every game it played.
Greaves, 32, kept it simple. “I have had a memorable month playing at home, and to have contributed with both bat and ball against Sri Lanka and Pakistan has been particularly special,” he said.
Matthews has had four months like it before. “It is just as special as the previous ones, and I hope it inspires me to keep raising my standards,” she said.