The former national team player was nominated for the role by Canterbury Cricket with her candidacy ratified by NZC members at a meeting in Christchurch.

She will serve a three-year term and replaces outgoing President Stephen Boock at the helm of the top-tier nation.

Fifty-four-year-old Hockley played 118 one-day internationals (ODIs) and 19 test matches for New Zealand's women.

The batting specialist scored 4,064 ODI runs, including four centuries with a top score of 117.

At test match level she scored 1,301 runs, with an unbeaten 126 her best knock alongside three other tons.

She was the first woman to reach 4,000 ODI runs, and also the first to play 100 ODIs. 

Two of her ODI centuries came at the Women's World Cup, where she is the all-time leading run scorer, while her career also included 34 ODI fifties.

Her test average was an impressive 52.04, with her ODI average also strong at 41.89. 

In 2014 she was inducted into the International Cricket Council's Hall of Fame.

NZC also elected a new female director in Ingrid Cronin-Knight.

Another former national team player, she fills the vacancy created by the departure of Stuart Heal, who stepped down after eight years on the board.

The past three of those years were as chairman.