De Kock and Wolvaardt are SA’s biggest winners

Quinton de Kock and Laura Wolvaardt received the highest accolade that Cricket South Africa (CSA) has to offer when they were named SA Men’s and SA Women’s Cricketer of the Year in their respective categories at CSA’s virtual awards ceremony.

The traditional gala ceremony was not possible because of the lockdown but it did not stop CSA celebrating the occasion. It was a truly memorable occasion for both ‘Quinny’ and Wolvaardt as they were honoured in three different categories. De Kock was also named Standard Bank Test Cricketer of the Year and was honoured by his peers as SA Men’s Players’ Player of the Year. Wolvaardt was also named Momentum Proteas ODI Cricketer of the Year and was voted SA Women’s Players’ Player of the Year. De Kock joined the elite company of those who have been named SA Men’s Cricketer of the Year on two occasions as he was previously honoured in 2017.

The other double winners are Jacques Kallis, Makhaya Ntini, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Kagiso Rabada. Wolvaardt was the youngest winner of South Africa’s top women’s award at the age of 21 years and two months with Sune Luus being just two months older when she won the award in 2017. Two of the awards,  the SA Fans’ Cricketer of the Year which was decided by an online poll and the KFC Streetwise Award ? were contested by both the Proteas men and Momentum Proteas women’s players. The former award went to David Miller in a tight contest and the latter was won by Mignon du Preez for her brilliant six-hit that virtually clinched South Africa’s victory over England at this year’s ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.

The win played a critical role in getting the Proteas through to the semi-finals and was also South Africa’s first-ever victory over England in a major ICC women’s tournament. The other big winners in the men’s national awards were Lungi Ngidi who was named both Standard Bank Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year and Standard Bank Men’s T20 International Cricketer of the Year, and Anrich Nortje who was not only named Men’s international newcomer of the year but also won the Ram Delivery of the Year award for his dismissal of David Warner in the third ODI at Senwes Park.

The other top award in the women’s category went to Shabnim Ismail who was again named Momentum Proteas T20 International Player of the Year while the theme of youthful winners continued with 19-year-old Nonkululeku Mlaba being named International Women’s Newcomer of the Year.”Quinny and Laura have set the highest standards that we expect from our icon Proteas players,” commented CSA acting chief executive, Dr Jacques Faul. “

Quinny is the leading wicketkeeper/batsman in Test cricket and is, in fact, one of the leading batsmen in both red-ball and white-ball cricket. He is also starting to emerge as an outstanding leader as witnessed by the Proteas clean sweep of Australia in their recent ODI series.”Laura was named in the tournament select XI at the conclusion of the ICC Women’s World T20 which tells us a great deal about the esteem in which she is held at international level. At the age of 21, her best years are ahead of her and she will be a key player when the Momentum Proteas go to the ICC Women’s World Cup next year.”