PCA Player of the Year
The Reg Hayter Cup for the NatWest PCA Player of the Year is an annual cricket award. It is presented to the player who is adjudged to have been the best of the year in English county cricket.[1] The award has been given since the 1970 season and the winner is chosen by a vote amongst the members of the players' trade union, the Professional Cricketers' Association (PCA).[2] With the exception of the first year, when a joint award was made, the award has been bestowed upon one individual each season. The winning player is awarded the Reg Hayter Cup, named after a sports journalist who was also a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club, a Lord's Taverner, and a life-member of Surrey County Cricket Club.[3] The award is well regarded by its recipients; the 2014 winner, Adam Lyth exemplified this by claiming that "it's a very proud moment to be voted for by your peers who you’ve played against all year."[4]
The award was first presented in 1970, when Mike Proctor of Gloucestershire and Jack Bond of Lancashire were joint winners. Seven players have won the award more than once, but only Sir Richard Hadlee (1981, 1984 and 1987) and Marcus Trescothick (2000, 2009 and 2011) have won been named Player of the Year on three occasions. Two players, Andrew Flintoff and John Lever, have won the award in consecutive years. Representatives of all eighteen first-class cricket counties have won the award. Gloucestershire players have collected the award most frequently, doing so on six occasions, while four of the counties (Derbyshire, Glamorgan, Leicestershire and Sussex) have only had one winner.
On nineteen occasions, the PCA Player of the Year has also been named one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year for that season, and in 2005 Flintoff won the PCA award in the same year as being voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year. The Cricket Writers' Club County Championship Player of the Year was introduced in 2012, and two of the three winners of that award have been the PCA Player of the Year at the same time.[5]
Winners
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Notes
- Note that Wisden Cricketers of the Year are awarded for the previous year. For the purposes of this list, being named PCA Player of the Year in 1970 is equivalent to being named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1971.
References
General
- "PCA Player of the Year". Professional Cricketers' Association. Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
Specific
- "Carter claims top PCA prize". England and Wales Cricket Board. 23 September 2010. Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved 30 September 2010.
- "Media advisory: cricket awards". Sports Journalists' Association. Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
- Sewell, Arthur (21 March 1994). "Obituary: Reg Hayter". The Independent. London: Independent Print Limited. Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved 30 September 2010.
- "Lyth and Lees scoop top PCA awards". England and Wales Cricket Board. 2 October 2014. Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
- "Cricket Writers' Club Awards". Cricket Writers' Club. Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
- "Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year". ESPNcricinfo. ESPN. Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
- Culf, Andrew (12 December 2005). "Ashes hero Flintoff voted Sports Personality of the Year". The Guardian. London: Guardian Media Group. Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2015.