Laura Wolvaardt welcomes ICC recognition for an outstanding season

Wolvaardt is nominated for the Women’s Player of the Year, ODI Player of the Year and T20I Player of the Year awards.

Speaking to SABC Sport, Wolvaardt says three nominations are an honour, however she’s mostly eyeing the Women’s Player of the Year accolade.

"Obviously a huge honour, the players that I'm nominated alongside are incredible cricketers, just to be nominated is really special and yeah, it reflects on a good season with the bat, which is awesome,” Wolvaardt said.

 “Obviously, the one I want to win the most is the main one I guess, overall player of the year, I think that would be sort of a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing but not gonna get too ahead of myself, I think some brilliant people in all those categories so just to be nominated is very special."

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2024 was Wolvaardt’s first full season as captain and ended up as the world’s top-ranked ODI batter.

She believes it was a special and learning year, having led the national team to the T20 World Cup final.

"I think it was a big learning year for me obviously my first full season as captain. I think the World Cup was obviously the big challenge, it's a whole different dynamic captaining a World Cup with every game being a different team and having a lot of preparation to do for each game,” she added.

“So, I think that was a big learning curve. Obviously, it went pretty well, making the final which I think was a big achievement for our group. Yeah, so a pretty successful year as a team.

“I think we'd still like to work on our consistency in bilateral series though if we reflect but in World Cups we definitely put up our best performances which is good to see."