Top award for Emily Drumm on eve of new challenge

Emily Drumm's success in captaining New Zealand to victory in the CricInfo Women's World Cup last summer was further recognised when she was named Auckland's sportsperson of the year last night.

The awards are made annually by Sport Auckland, and are awarded in a number of categories, of which Drumm won the Sportswoman of the Year award, with the choice of an overall winner coming from the category winners.

Drumm said the major award came as "a bit of a shock" to her.

"I just turned up to the function with no expectations, apart from the fact I might have a reasonable show in the sportswoman section.

"So I was surprised about the big award," the CLEAR White Ferns captain said.

Drumm said she never tried to compare sports and achievements in different sports, but felt that some of those she headed had performed some outstanding feats.

Drumm had been nominated for an award last year, and won a Service to Sport Award in 1995, but last night's success was the closest thing to the Halberg Awards (New Zealand's national sports awards).

"I was blown away by it all.

"It was great to have captained a world championship winning team but ours was a complete team effort. You couldn't single anyone out in our final, everyone contributed.

"I'm really honoured by the award and it will always be on the mantlepiece," she said.

The award comes as New Zealand goes into an era of rebuilding its team in order to defend the world title in 2005 in South Africa.

"It is a huge challenge to get new players up to speed and the tricky thing is that the team to tour India will be named on October 1 before a ball has been bowled in the new season.

"It will be a hard tour and we have to get our act together quickly," she said.

Drumm said there was no lack of skill or quality among the young players vying for places in the team, but the big question would surround how quickly the new players adapted.

"They will certainly learn quickly in India. I will have to take on more of a mothering role to get them to think more about their game.

"Skill and flair will get them to a certain level but there are a few more realities at international level."

While more experienced players might not have the skills of the newer players, they did perform more consistently because of the hard work they put in to getting the most from the skills they did have, she said.

"It is important for our senior players to help the younger players adjust," she said.

Drumm is not daunted by the task ahead.

"It is quite exciting, and challenging.

"We do back ourselves to be very competitive with Australia. They've lost one player, we've lost four but we have done everything we can to prepare these young players. We are giving ourselves every opportunity to develop.

"We have a huge nine months coming up.

"Whoever learns the game fastest and puts their game together will survive," she said.

Public expectations were high for the side after their success last year but it needed to be realised that New Zealand women's cricket was entering a new era.

"We have four years to get it right.

"These young ones just operate on adrenalin. They have to realise, as I said last night, that training, training, training is what makes you world-class. There are no second options," she said.