South Africa's Laura Wolvaardt conferred with Sport Personality of the Year

After a terrific season with the bat in both domestic and international cricket recently, South Africa’s prolific run-scorer, Laura Wolvaardt has been awarded the Sport Personality of the Year award at the recently held Sport Industry Award. 

The 23-year-old enjoyed her career-best season with the bat, as she smashed 882 runs in 18 ODI matches in 2022. With a staggering average of 49, the opener recorded one ton and eight half-centuries in the year 2022. 

The Cape Town-born cricketer was also South Africa’s premier batter at the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 in New Zealand earlier this year. Aggregating 443 runs in the tournament, she now has 757 runs in 15 World Cup matches - most by a South African player.

Courtesy of her impactful performances throughout the campaign, the Proteas reached the semi-finals of the competition, where they lost to England by 137 runs.

Barring the ICC tournament, Laura also featured in the inaugural Women’s T20 competition at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games and also made her Test debut against England in June.

Recently, she won the Women’s Big Bash League title with Adelaide Strikers and was also the leading run-scorer for the side. In 16 matches played during the tournament, Laura scored 403 runs at a strike rate of 106.05.

To see women’s cricket being recognised on such a big stage is amazing: Laura Wolvaardt

The Proteas cricketer couldn’t attend the ceremony because of the Women’s Big Bash League. She, however, shared her reaction by thanking everyone and also revealed her favourite moment from the calendar year.

“It’s such an honour to be receiving this award. It has been a big year for me, I have played a lot of cricket and to see women’s cricket being recognised on such a big stage is amazing and it is great to see the progress that the game has made over the last couple of years.

For me this year, my favourite moment was probably the World Cup. We had a really good World Cup in New Zealand where we made the semi-finals of the tournament. It was a great team performance all-round and everyone contributed at different times and it was just a really good tournament to be a part of,” said the 23-year-old.

“I am very honoured to be receiving this award. Thank you to everyone at the event for making it possible and hopefully it is the beginning of many more to come,” she concluded.