Cricket South Africa (CSA) awards winners

Cricket South Africa (CSA) has named their top-flight award winners on July 4 for their efforts during the 2019/2020/ season.

Quinton de Kock and Laura Wolvaart walked away with top honours as the Cricketers of the Year in respectively the men’s and women’s categories.

De Kock has received the coveted award for the second time (2017) and joins a small group of cricketers who received this award on two occasions. The traditional gala ceremony was not held because of the Covid-19 lockdown, but that did not stop the CSA family from celebrating the occasion in a suitable manner.

De Kock was also named Test Cricketer of the Year and SA Men’s Players’ Player of the Year. Wolvaardt was named Proteas ODI Cricketer of the Year and voted SA Women’s Players’ Player of the Year.

She is the youngest winner of South Africa’s top women’s award, at the age of 21, with Sune Luus being just two months older when she won the award in 2017. Lungi Ngidi was named both Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year and Men’s T20 International Cricketer of the Year, and Anrich Nortje was not only named Men’s International Newcomer of the Year, but also won the Delivery of the Year award for his dismissal of David Warner in the third ODI at Senwes Park.

Another top award in the women’s category went to Shabnim Ismail, who was again named Proteas T20 International Player of the Year, while the theme of youthful winners continued with 19-year-old Nonkululeko 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,” said CSA’s acting CEO 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 an 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.”

Faul said that he was pleased to see a number of young players starting to dominate at an international level as South African cricket enter a new era.

“Anrich Nortje and Lungi Ngidi have ensured that our fast bowling stocks remain among the best in the world. “It is an important sign of the changing face of cricket that for the first time our best men’s and women’s players competed on a level playing field for some of the awards and Mignon du Preez’s achievement in being named winner of the KFC Streetwise Award is a very significant one. She has been a wonderful servant of the game for a long period of time and her performance in reaching the milestone of 100 T20 International caps deserves special mention.

“Our domestic cricket remains blessed with great talents and congratulations to all the winners in those categories as well. I warmly congratulate all our winners, both at international and domestic levels, and I also wish to take this opportunity to acknowledge our umpires, grounds staff and scorers, too.”

Grant Roelofsen, of the Dolphins, was one of two big winners in the professional awards: domestic category, being named One-Day Cup Cricketer of the Season and Domestic Players’ Player of the Season. George Linde of the Cape Cobras was also a double winner, being named Four-day Domestic Series Cricketer of the Year and the SACA Most Valuable Player (MVP).

Wandile Gwavu, of the Lions, is the Coach of the Season and Wandile Makwetu, of the Knights, is the Domestic Newcomer of the season.

The Mzansi Super League awards went to Tabraiz Shamsi, of the Paarl Rocks, as Mzansi Super League Impact Player of the Year and to Janneman Malan, of the Cape Town Blitz, as Mzansi Super League Young Player of the Year.

The provincial category winners were:

Lerato Kgoatle (CSA Provincial T20 Cricketer of the Year), Beyers Swanepoel (CSA Provincial Three-Day Cricketer of the Year), Ruan de Swardt (CSA Provincial One-Day Cricketer of the Year) and Richard das Neves (Provincial Coach of the Year).

In the operational category, Adrian Holdstock did the double of both the CSA Umpire of the Year and the CSA Umpires’ Umpire of the Year. The CSA Fair Play award went to the Warriors, and the CSA Scorers of the Year award went to the Central Gauteng Lions.