Southlander wins big at NZ Cricket Awards

Keegan Russell has become the third Southland Cricket Association development officer to win a New Zealand Cricket Award during the past eight years.

Southland Cricket Association development officer Keegan Russell was honoured at the New Zealand Cricket Awards in Auckland on Thursday night.

Russell was named the New Zealand Cricket’s Activator of the Year for his work growing the sport in Southland.

Remarkably Russell is the third SCA development officer to win the award during the past eight years.

Sam Ward won it in 2016 and James Carr in 2018.

The Otago Cricket Association nominated Russell for the award category saying in the citation that his work ethic, enthusiasm, and ability to work across all areas of the community game to both grow and develop it made him a great asset.

Russell began as a casual summer staff member for Otago Cricket at the start of the 2021/22 season in Dunedin.

He then relocated to take on the community development officer role based in Southland.

“Since that time, it has been hard to stop Keegan from taking every opportunity to grow the game in Southland. 

Over the past year, Keegan has leapt at every opportunity to pilot projects, including the NZC community buddy programme (which was his idea), and Smash Play pilots. The quality of his work saw him snapped up into the NZC Youth Advisory group.  

Early in Russell’s tenure at the Southland Cricket Association he implemented a new female social league in Invercargill that quickly grew to ten teams, which he has maintained in 2022/23.