Cricket: Cairns scores awards hat-trick

By RICHARD BOOCK

A triumphant Chris Cairns may be considering an extension to his trophy cabinet after scooping all three main awards at the New Zealand Cricketer of the Year dinner.

The man who finished the eight-test season at the top of the New Zealand batting and bowling averages predictably won the country's ultimate award at last night's black-tie ceremony at Eden Park, but also took out the premier batting and bowling prizes.

It is only the second time in 62 years that a player has won both the Redpath Cup for batting and the Winsor Cup for bowling, emulating the deeds of John R. Reid in 1954-55.

Cairns said: "It's a great honour to actually follow someone like John Reid."

Only a few hours earlier, the 29-year-old Cantabrian had been named test cricket's No 1 allrounder after leap-frogging South Africa's Shaun Pollock and Jacques Kallis in the latest round of the PricewaterhouseCoopers' player rankings.

Cairns, who departs today for Dhaka, where he will represent the Rest of the World against Asia, was ranked the world's 12th best batsman and 17th best bowler after a mercurial season with both bat and ball.

Late last night he was named by the cricketing bible Wisden as one of its five players of the year. The others were Tom Moody, of Australia, South African Lance Klusener, Pakistan's Saqlain Mushtaq, and Rahul Dravid, of India.

Crowned International Player of the Summer on Monday, Cairns was at his best in the five home tests, averaging 51.50 with the bat and taking 17 wickets at 9.94 against the West Indies, before carrying the bulk of the run-scoring responsibility against Australia, with 341 runs at 56.83.

Although performing within the bounds of a mere mortal during the three tests in India (averaging 33.50 with the bat and 50.80 with the ball), Cairns performed so impressively at home that he ended up the season's leading run-scorer with 578 runs (at 48.16) and took 32 wickets at 25.06

In terms of his career, Cairns has emerged as a better batsman than Pollock and a superior bowler to Kallis, and neither of the South Africans can match him in their weaker discipline.

In 42 tests Pollock has taken 175 wickets at 20.33 while scoring 1444 runs at 29.46. He has yet to score a century. Kallis, on the other hand, has scored six centuries and 11 half-centuries, while amassing 2115 runs in 36 tests at an average of 43.16 and has taken 61 wickets at 28.04.

Cairns has scored 2396 runs in 47 tests at 29.83, including three centuries and 19 half-centuries.

His most memorable performances in the past year or so were his efforts in the fourth test at the Oval, when he took five wickets in the first innings before coming to the rescue with a match-winning 80 in the second, and his feats in the first test against the West Indies at Hamilton.

There, Cairns gave New Zealand a crucial lead with a belligerent first innings half-century, and then destroyed Brian Lara's tourists with a career-best analysis of seven for 27.

Nathan Astle, now ranked the world's fourth-best one-day batsman, was awarded the Walter Hadlee Trophy for ODI batting, while injured left-arm paceman Geoff Allott won the Walter Hadlee Trophy for ODI bowling after his record-equalling haul of 20 wickets at last year's World Cup.

The other feature of the evening was the announcement of a New Zealand "Living Legends" team, chosen by a panel of present and former chairmen of selectors, Ross Dykes, Frank Cameron and Don Neely.

The team, in batting order, is Glenn Turner, John Wright, Andrew Jones, Martin Crowe, Bert Sutcliffe, John R. Reid (captain), Sir Richard Hadlee, Bruce Taylor, Ian Smith, Daniel Vettori and Dick Motz.