Two Bay of Plenty Cricket members received a rare honour at the BOPCA prizegiving.
Alan Cotter and Derek Beard were awarded Life Membership of the Bay of Plenty Cricket Association. They are just the third and fourth members to receive the honour since the BOPCA was affiliated to New Zealand Cricket in 1931.
"The board is delighted to be able to recognise two such worthy recipients who have provided fantastic service to cricket in the region over an extended period of time. We have recently reinvigorated the life membership process and hope to be able to continue to acknowledge outstanding members in coming years," Bay of Plenty Cricket chairman Richard Dey said.
Between 1981 and 1998 Beard became just the second Bay of Plenty player to reach 100 games for Bay of Plenty. He played the most matches for Bay of Plenty (105), contributed the second most runs (2843) and took the most wickets (204).
Beard also played eight games for Northern Districts. Beard played 13 Hawke Cup challenges, the most by a Bay player, scoring 549 runs with a highest score of 135. He is second on the Bay of Plenty Hawke Cup wicket tally with 21 and best bowling figures of 6/48.