‘Debbie Hockley Medal’ introduced by New Zealand Cricket

• Debbie Hockley Medal will be given to one outstanding women’s cricketer of year.
• The award will be presented on a regular basis.
• This year’s New Zealand Cricket Awards will be held on March 23 in Auckland.

The inaugural Debbie Hockley Medal will be given to one outstanding women’s cricket player at this year’s annual cricket awards ceremony, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) said on Thursday.

This year’s New Zealand Cricket Awards, which will be held on March 23 in Auckland, will feature the newly established award on a regular basis, with equal standing to the Sir Richard Hadlee Medal for the year’s top male player.

Debbie played 118 One Day Internationals and 19 Tests for New Zealand between 1979 and 2000. Debbie was regarded as one of the best batters in the world during her playing days and among the best to have ever played the game. On the night of the awards, she will personally present the new honour.

Debbie is the only woman to have received the prestigious Sir Richard Hadlee Medal, which was instituted in 1998, 13 years after Debbie received the award. She acknowledged her happiness at being named for the new honour.

“I feel honoured, personally, of course – but also thrilled that the country’s outstanding women’s cricketer of the year will be recognised on an annual and ongoing basis. It’s been wonderful to watch the progress of the women’s game in New Zealand over the past five or six years and this is another very positive development.”

“Women’s cricket is going from strength to strength; the growth at all levels has been amazing. I’m looking forward to presenting this award to the inaugural recipient in March,” she said in an official statement.

Debbie was recognised into the ICC Hall of Fame as the fourth woman, following Belinda Clark (Australia), Enid Bakewell, and Rachael Heyhoe-Flint (England). She amassed 1301 runs in Test matches at an average of 52.04, including four centuries, seven half-centuries, and a high of 126 not out against Australia in Auckland in 1990.

In ODIs, she amassed 4064 runs at 41.89, including four hundreds and 34 half-centuries, while she claimed 54 wickets. She was the first woman to play 100 ODIs and the first to surpass 4,000 ODI runs. She led New Zealand on 33 occasions in both formats.

In addition, Debbie was the first woman to win the NZC presidency, accumulate 1500 World Cup runs, and play in more than 40 World Cup games. She played in the 2000 ODI World Cup championship match between New Zealand and Australia at Lincoln before calling it quits on international cricket.

She was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 1999 New Year’s Honours for contributions to cricket, and in 2021 she was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for similar reasons.

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