South Africa wicket-keeper batsman Quinton de Kock was named South Africa Men’s Cricketer of the Year during a virtual awards ceremony held on Saturday July 4.
Quinton de Kock, who scored 739 runs in 15 innings of 8 Test matches in 2019, also bagged the Test Cricketer of the Year award.
Laura Wolvaardt won both South Africa Women’s Cricketer of the Year and ODI Cricketer of the Year awards.
“At the age of 21 her best years are ahead of her and she will be a key player when the team go to the Women’s World Cup next year,” CSA Acting CEO, Jacques Faul said about the Laura.
The South African limited-overs captain became South Africa’s men’s cricketer of the year for the second time.
He became the sixth player to claim the honor for the second time, other players who have won the award twice are Makhaya Ntini, Kagiso Rabada, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, and Jacques Kallis.
The left-handed De Kock, 27, was comfortably South Africa’s the best batsman in a year in which the national team won only one out of seven series across all formats.
Quinton de Kock leading wicket-keeper batsman in Test: Faul
Wicketkeeper-batsman De Kock was South Africa’s leading run-scorer in five out of seven series and was the team’s top scorer in nine out of 27 innings.
“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,” Faul said.
But he said his highlight of the year was leading the one-day team to a 3-0 series win against Australia, the only series in which he did not play a prominent individual role.
Fast bowler Lungi Ngidi was the one-day international and Twenty20 international player of the year.
While David Miller was voted the fans’ favourite player, Anrich Nortje, who made his Test debut in India and took a five-for in the Test series against England, was adjudged the International men’s ‘newcomer’ of the year.
Shabnim Ismail took home the women’s T20 player of the year with left-arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba was recognised as the women’s ‘newcomer’ of the Year.
The annual awards ceremony, which was instituted in 2004, was a virtual event this year, live-streamed online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Shaun Pollock (2007), Dale Steyn (2008), Graeme Smith (2009), Vernon Philander (2012) and Faf du Plessis (2019) have been other recipients of the award.
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