The New Zealand Cricket Awards (also known as ANZ New Zealand Cricket Awards for sponsorship reasons) are a set of annual cricket awards given by New Zealand Cricket. The awards recognise and honour the best of New Zealander players, match officials and administrators. [1]
The New Zealand Cricket Awards was launched in 1970 by New Zealand Cricket Council with Cobb & Co. as its title sponsor, and awarded then existing awards Best Batsman and Best Bowler of Plunket Shield Trophy. However, a notable list of awards featuring two major awards Men's International Player of the Year and Women's International Player of the Year first awarded in 1997. [2] [3]
The winners of the awards are selected by a panel of judges which mainly consists of eminent former cricketers from New Zealand. Sir Richard Hadlee, Ian Smith, John F. Reid, Debbie Hockley and Lesley Murdoch have been part of this panel. [4]
Kane Williamson and Daniel Vettori have won the Men's International Player of the Year award record four times each. In the same category in women's cricket, Suzie Bates has won it most times with four awards. Debbie Hockley is the only woman cricketer to have won the International Player of the Year award, won it in 1998. [5]
In 2011, The New Zealand Cricket introduced the Sir Richard Hadlee Medal to recognise the Men's International Player of the Year. The Women's version of this medal the Debbie Hockley Medal was introduced in 2023. [6] [7] The inaugural recipients were Chris Martin and Amelia Kerr respectively. [8] [9]
The New Zealand Cricket introduced a new set of awards in 2008, to recognise the excellent contributions of community personnel and organizations towards the development of the game. The awards later renamed as Community Awards in 2019. [68] [69]