Kane Williamson became the first player in New Zealand's history to win the Sir Richard Hadlee Medal thrice, it was announced on Thursday, reports Cricbuzz.
The award takes into consideration the performance in all three formats and is given to the best player of the year. Ross Taylor has won the award twice while Trent Boult and Brendon McCullum have been bestowed with the honour once since the award was introduced in 2010-11.
Williamson, also awarded the Test player of the year, led his side to five consecutive Test series wins - against Windies, Sri Lanka, England, Pakistan and Bangladesh - and also became the first player to score 20 Test centuries for the country. Since the start of 2018, Williamson scored 925 runs in nine Tests, 838 runs in 21 ODIs and 332 runs from 15 T20Is. He scored five centuries with three of them in the longest format.
Ross Taylor was awarded the ODI Player of the Year while Colin Munro bagged the T20I Player of the Year for the second time running. Taylor scored 1232 runs since the start of 2018 with his average at 82.13 He also became the first New Zealand player to reach the landmark of 20 ODI centuries. Munro was the top-scorer for the Blackcaps in the last year with 634 runs from 16 T20s at an average of 42.26 and a strike rate of 176.60.
