England Cricketer of the Year Awards
13th May 2013ECB today announced that Matt Prior and Katherine Brunt have been named, respectively, as the England Men’s and England Women’s Cricketer of the Year for 2012-2013.
Essex and England Under 19s wicketkeeper-batsman Ben Foakes won the England Development Programme Cricketer of the Year award while the England Disability Cricketer of the Year award was made to Matthew Dean from England’s Visually Impaired squad.
All four were honoured at a special dinner held in the Long Room at Lord’s this evening which was hosted by ECB and Brit Insurance, the sponsor of all England’s cricket teams.
The awards recognise outstanding performances in all formats of international cricket over the past year beginning with last summer’s domestic international programme and encompassing the recent winter tours.
Matt Prior overcame competition from last year’s winner James Anderson and England Test and ODI captain Alastair Cook to win the Men’s Award which was decided by votes from members of the cricket media.
He is the first England wicketkeeper to win this award after enjoying an excellent year behind the stumps and with the bat - scoring seven Test half-centuries overall and a match-saving century in England’s most recent Test Match against New Zealand in Auckland.
England pace bowler Katherine Brunt won the Women’s award for a third time after previous triumphs in 2006 and 2010 following a year in which she proved to be England’s most consistent performer with the ball – picking up twelve wickets in England’s recent ICC Women’s World Cup campaign in India. Her fellow nominees were Holly Colvin, Charlotte Edwards and Sarah Taylor.
Ben Foakes was named the winner of the England Development Programme Cricketer of the Year award. The Essex wicket-keeper batsman was England Under 19s’ leading run-scorer at the Under 19 World Cup in Australia last summer, toured India with the England Performance Programme squad last winter and Australia with England Lions earlier this year. He also made 93 on his LV=County Championship debut for Essex against Leicestershire earlier in the summer.
Matthew Dean, from Welling in Kent, received the Disability Cricketer of the Year award after enjoying an outstanding 12 months with the England Visually Impaired squad. He was the team’s leading run-scorer in last winter’s T20 World Cup for the Blind in India – contributing 490 runs at an average of more than 80.
Matt Prior’s unbeaten century in the recent Auckland Test Match which helped England draw the Test series against New Zealand also won the TwelfthMan Cricketing Moment of the Year Award, voted for by members of ECB’s TwelfthMan fan community on Facebook.
ECB Chief Executive David Collier said: “There have some memorable individual performances across all our England teams over the past year - a 12 month period which saw the England Men’s team win a Test Series in India for the first time in 28 years and the England Women complete a clean sweep of four NatWest series wins at home last summer.
“We congratulate the winners, Matt, Katherine, Matthew and Ben, on their individual achievements and thank all those who took part in the judging process as well as our team sponsor Brit, and the MCC, for their help in staging our annual awards ceremony.”