Blackcaps star Glenn Phillips has emerged as an early winner from the NZ Cricket Awards, voted by his teammates for the NZ Players Association Cap.
Phillips probably started the summer as a swashbuckling whiteball batting specialist, but expanded that reputation into the test arena, where he played a key part in a drawn series in Bangladesh and then showed his skills with the ball during the NZ season.
Over six tests, he scored 314 runs at an average of 35 runs and took 17 wickets with his part-time spin, including a five-wicket bag against Australia at Wellington. Phillips also excelled in the field with five catches, many of them simply spectacular.
"It was a fantastic honour," he told Newshub. "It definitely wasn't something I thought was coming and it was an incredible surprise... quite indescribable to be honest.
"When the guys you spend so much time with, and they come together and vote for your performances over the year... not necessarily just performances, but the way the team environment is done, going out and doing little things on the field and contributing to something bigger than ourselves.
"To be the recipient of that award was really unbelievable."
The supreme award of the night is the Sir Richard Hadlee Medal, won last year by allrounder Daryl Mitchell.
