Wolvaardt’s five-star CSA awards night confirms superwoman status

Laura Wolvaardt’s excellence with the bat and her resolve as newly-installed Proteas Women’s captain saw her scoop five prizes at Cricket SA’s Professional Awards ceremony on Thursday night. 

Wolvaardt was named Women’s Player of the Year and took home best ODI, T20 and the Players Player titles. She also claimed the Fan’s favourite player prize. 

On the men’s side the main award went to Marco Jansen, whose overall influence across the three formats earned the 24-year-old the Player of the Year Award. 

Because the ceremony only recognised achievements in the period from August last year to the end of last season in May, key performances at big events like the men’s T20 World Cup were ignored. 

Reeza Hendricks was named T20 Player of the Year. Quinton de Kock won ODI Player of the Year.

Ideally CSA would have wanted the awards to take place at the end of the 2023-24 season, but that would have meant a host of players — both men and women — would have missed the festivities because they were playing in leagues overseas.

In the case of Proteas T20 captain Aiden Markram, he travelled to India in March for the Indian Premier League, then headed straight to New York for the T20 World Cup, followed that with a stint in the US's Major League Cricket, went straight to the West Indies for Tests and T20s and only returned home last week.

Wolvaardt had a stunning season, showing that far from it being a burden, the captaincy was something she relished. In 12 ODIs she scored four centuries, including a new South African record of 184 against Sri Lanka, averaging 80.55 in the format. 

She also scored her first T20 International century against Sri Lanka in March and though it didn’t fall in the judging period her maiden Test century against India in June, further demonstrated how well she balanced the demands of captaincy with the responsibility of being the team’s best batter. 

Her achievements are even more notable because she took over a team in transition at a time when there was angst among senior players about the direction the Proteas were taking while CSA continued to fret over the process of appointing a new coach. 

Though Dillon du Preez will continue as interim coach at next month’s T20 World Cup, director of cricket Enoch Nkwe this week confirmed Wolvaardt’s team would finally have a permanent coach to work with from November 1.

Jansen’s reward as Player of the Year resulted primarily from his excellent showing at last year’s ODI World Cup, where he finished as the Proteas' second-highest wicket-taker with 17 and also scored 157 runs that included a match-turning 75 not out in the round-robin match against England in Mumbai. 

He shared a partnership of 161 runs with Heinrich Klaasen, which took South Africa from 233/4, a situation in which the match was still in the balance, to 399/7, setting up a comfortable win. 

In just two Tests, he made a crucial unbeaten 84 and picked up four wickets in the victory in the first Test against India at Centurion.

David Bedingham’s first international summer, earned him both the Newcomer and Test Player of the Year awards, while Keshav Maharaj, walked away with the Players Player crown, a recognition of his instrumental role in all three formats.

Bedingham made a half century on debut against India and followed that with a century in Wellington against New Zealand, where he was part of a drastically weakened squad. 

The men’s domestic prizes were dominated by the Gauteng Lions. Leg-spinner, Nqaba Peter earned the Domestic Newcomer and T20 Challenge titles, Wiaan Mulder was Division 1 Four-Day Player of the Year, Bjorn Fortuin won the Domestic Players Player of the Year and Russell Domingo was named the best coach in Division 1.