Hockley played 118 ODIs and 19 Tests for New Zealand from 1979 to 2000. She was regarded as one of the best batsmen of the two decades in the 1980s and 1990s and is regarded as a pioneer of the women’s game. She is the only woman to win the New Zealand Cricketer of the Year award in 1998, 13 years before the Sir Richard Hadlee Medal was introduced.
Hockley said, “I am personally honored but also thrilled that the country’s outstanding female cricketer of the year will be recognized on an annual and ongoing basis.” “It has been wonderful to see the progress of the women’s game in New Zealand over the last five or six years and this is another positive development.
“Women’s cricket is going from strength to strength, the growth at all levels has been amazing.
“I look forward to presenting this award to the inaugural recipient in March.”
Hockley was the fourth woman to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2013, following Australia’s Belinda Clark and England’s Enid Bakewell and Rachael Hayhoe-Flint.
Hockley scored over 4000 ODI runs at an average of nearly 42 including four centuries. She was the first woman to cross 4000 ODI runs, and also the first woman to play 100 ODIs.
