New Zealand women’s team captain Sophie Devine was recently honored for her achievements during the 2019/20 cricket season. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association (CPA) awards held an online presentation ceremony on Wednesday, 8 April to honor her.
Devine was presented with the CPA Players’ Award for her outstanding performance. Devine has shown fantastic form this season, especially with the bat by hitting six successive fifty-plus scores in February 2020. Maintaining her streak, she was also the top scorer for New Zealand at this year’s ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.
New Zealand CPA board member and former women’s player Rebecca Rolls presented the award to Devine in a virtual ceremony. “It is a real honor to be able to present this award to such a deserving recipient in Sophie,” she said.
“Being recognized by your peers is the ultimate accolade for any player and this award is particularly relevant as it allows players to recognize statistical outputs alongside those intangible aspects that contribute toward the team’s performance.”
Devine later expressed her elation in a video chat. “It’s certainly not about the individual, it’s about the team. It does really mean a lot to be recognized over the past 12 months by your team-mates, especially because we haven’t played a lot of cricket apart from the last month or two, but yeah, really special to be able to win this award,” she said.
Devine has now won the award for three consecutive seasons, equalling the record of men’s captain Kane Williamson, who achieved the feat from 2015 to 2017. While Black Caps speedster Tim Southee was honored with the Players’ Cap award. He had a phenomenal season last year, especially in test cricket where he picked 33 wickets in six games.
The CPA Players’ Award leading vote for the White Ferns were as follows:
ODI: Suzie Bates
T20I: Sophie Devine
The CPA Players’ Award leading vote recipients from each series during 2019/20 were:
South Africa in NZ: Sophie Devine
ICC World Twenty20: Hayley Jensen
