Quinton de Kock and Laura Wolvaardt received the highest accolade from Cricket South Africa (CSA) as they won the SA Men’s and SA Women’s Cricketer of the Year award in their respective categories at CSA’s annual awards on Saturday. The traditional award ceremony was not possible because of the coronavirus lockdown. Hence, the CSA conducted a virtual award ceremony. Both de Kock and Wolvaardt shone during the CSA awards as they were honoured in three different categories. De Kock was also named Test Cricketer of the Year and was honoured by his peers as SA Men’s Players’ Player of the Year.
Wolvaardt, on the other hand, was also named Proteas ODI Cricketer of the Year and was voted SA Women’s Players’ Player of the Year.
De Cock 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 of CSA’s most prestigious men’s award are Jacques Kallis (2004 and 2011), Makhaya Ntini (2005 and 2006), Hashim Amla (2010 and 2013), AB de Villiers (2014 and 2015) and Kagiso Rabada (2016 and 2018).
The other previous winners since the awards were instituted in 2004 are Shaun Pollock (2007), Dale Steyn (2008), Graeme Smith (2009), Vernon Philander (2012) and Faf du Plessis (2019).
Wolvaardt becomes the youngest winner of South Africa’s top women’s award at the age of 21 years.
In an important first for gender equality two of the awards — the SA Fans’ Cricketer of the Year, which was decided by an online poll and the Streetwise Award — were contested by both the Proteas men and women’s players. The former award went to David Miller in a tight contest which was only decided in the final week and the latter was won by Mignon du Preez.
