Cricket South Africa to celebrate CSA Day

In an exciting development, Cricket South Africa has dedicated an entire day on June 30 to honour its cricket stars, as it celebrates CSA and the Proteas most successful year ever.

Gerald Majola, CSA CEO, said: "June 30 is going to be a wonderful celebration of the outstanding achievements of South African cricket during the remarkable season of 2008/9.

"These achievements are led by the Proteas who produced the best season by a national team in South African cricket history. Under the captaincy of Graeme Smith, they beat all comers in many parts of the cricketing world, including test series against Australia and England on their home turfs.

"Their victorious march has been under-pinned by a structured development programme, leading from grassroots to the pinnacle of the Proteas. Participants in these structures are also going to be honoured. It is most pleasing to see that both professional and amateur cricket in South Africa share the same aim: to pursue excellence at all times.

"It is going to be a great day after a great season, and CSA is most grateful to sponsors Standard Bank, Castle, MTN and Bakers Biscuits for making it possible not only to play the game but celebrate it afterwards as well."

Dubbed CSA Day, the morning kicks off with the 2009 SA Cricket Awards breakfast in association with Bakers, which pays tribute to the stars of amateur cricket.

The highlight of the awards breakfast is the introduction of the Khaya Majola Lifetime Achievement Award, which is presented to an individual who has made a selfless and enduring contribution over a lifetime to the advancement of South African cricket.

Shortly after the Awards breakfast, sponsors, media and celebrities get a rare opportunity to play golf with the Proteas in the CSA Golf Invitational 2009, at Johannesburg Country Club, Woodmead.

Then, in the evening is the 2009 SA Cricket Awards Gala Dinner in association with Standard Bank, Castle and MTN, to honour South Africa’s professional cricket stars in a first-ever live-to-air TV special on SuperSport, broadcast partners of the gala event.

The Proteas have come off such an outstanding past 12 months that no one player will be able to dominate the Awards Dinner this year, as has often happened in the past.

Last year, for example, Dale Steyn virtually swept the awards with four successful nominations as SA Cricketer of the Year, Castle Test Cricketer of the Year, SA Players’ Player of the Year and SuperSport Fans’ Cricketer of the Year.

This time the competition is intense and nowhere is it better illustrated than in the nominations for the supreme award: SA Cricketer of the Year. Normally there are only three nominations for each professional award but this time the judges have felt compelled to have five on their final short list.

Those in contention are Graeme Smith, Ashwell Prince, JP Duminy, AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn.

Smith, having scored a record 1 600 test runs in the 2008 calendar year and led South Africa to away test series victories in both England and Australia, is a strong contender both in this category and as Castle Test Cricketer of the Year.

But he does not feature for either Standard Bank One-Day International Cricketer of the Year or Standard Bank International Pro20 Cricketer of the Year. Johan Botha has been nominated in both categories where he will be up against AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn for the ODI award and against JP Duminy and Albie Morkel for the Pro20 award.

One of the tightest contests could be for International Newcomer of the Year where there are three outstanding candidates in Roelof van der Merwe, Wayne Parnell and Lonwabo Tsotsobe.

“We play cricket to represent our country with pride and humility and realise the privilege and responsibility that it gives us,” commented Smith on behalf of the players. “But these awards are something special for the players as the SA Cricket Awards Ceremony is highly respected by all professional players in South Africa. It is our Oscar evening.”

Colin Bryden, chairperson of the SA Cricket Awards committee, said: “The awards judging period was from 1 May last year until the end of April this year, and the judges were faced with a challenge because of the number of fantastic performances in what was a terrific year for South African cricket. We are in the happy position because it was a case of who to leave out rather than who to include.”

Claude Henderson, Charl Langeveldt and Imraan Khan have all received three nominations in the Domestic Professional Awards category.

Alicia Smith, Trisha Chetty, and Charlize van Westhuizen have been nominated for Women’s Cricketer of the Year.