LUKE Evans has capped off his stunning season with the Hamilton and District Cricket Association’s (HDCA) highest individual honour, the P.F. Christie Medal, on Wednesday night.

The Portland Colts all-rounder, who is often referred to as ‘Bommer’, continued the southern domination of the top grade, claiming the award as the A grade player of the year, following on from Tyrendarra’s premiership wins across the one-day and longer formats.

In a historic year for the association where Portland’s and Hamilton’s A grade competitions joined, Evans was able to find a new gear with both the bat and ball.

It follows up his efforts in 2022-23 in the Portland and District Cricket Association which saw him named as one of the two joint winners of the association’s A grade cricketer of the year.

Evans finished the season with 601 runs and 23 wickets, polling 17 votes to finish two clear of joint runner-up Tyrendarra bowling all-rounder, Ben Menzel, and St Andrew’s batting all-rounder, Brendan Huf.

The Colts number four batsman said it was a special moment to collect the award.

“It is obviously an honour to win,” he said.

“Statistically wise, this would be my best year.

“Other years we have won premierships and so you enjoy that more, but individually you don’t play for these awards, but I’ll take it.

“It has been a great year; we’ve loved it coming up here and the merger has worked perfectly.

“I’d trade all this in to make the grand final, but as a whole we’ve had a great year as a club, and I’ve loved it.”

Despite notching up more than 600 runs at an average of 50.08, it was his consistency that was evident, with no triple figure scores recorded for the season and only four half centuries.

Evans said he got plenty of starts, and batted long periods as part of his role within the team.

“A lot of 30s and 40s, which are annoying but are better than low scores,” he said.

“My job at number four is just to be the anchor and let others bat around me.

“I am a defensive sort of batter; I do like to knuckle down and get myself in.”

The Colts skipper said joining the HDCA had helped his game in terms of developing his batting and bowling against players he’d not played against before.

“That has all been a great part of it, we came from a five-team comp and playing the same blokes every three or four weeks, so it’s been great to play against new players and great cricketers,” he said.

“I love doing both, I’d much rather always doing something.

“You might not make too many runs, but you can redeem yourself with the ball.

“I love taking wickets as much as I love making runs … I love bowling long spells, I just love being in the game.”

With this season done and dusted, Evans has already turned his attention to next year and where the improvement will come in his game.

“I just need to rock up next season and start again, I am not going to take it for granted, so will reset and hopefully go even bigger and better,” he said.