Ireland Wins Top ICC Development Award

Ireland Wins Top ICC Development Award

The Photo Of The Year, courtesy of the Brunei Darussalam Cricket Association

©Brunei Darussalam Cricket Association

Cricket Ireland took the top prize of the Pepsi ICC Development Programme Awards 2011, claiming the Best Overall Cricket Development Programme, while Kanaksi Khimji of Oman Cricket was this year’s recipient of the Lifetime Service award.

Cricket Scotland was awarded the Best Women’s Cricket Initiative for its outstanding work in 2011, while Japan Cricket Association won the Best Spirit of Cricket Initiative for its ‘Cricket for Smiles’ project, which was created as a reaction to the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011.

Aliya Bauer, of Cricket Kenya, has been honoured with the Volunteer of the Year Award for her dedicated work alongside the Maasai Cricket Warriors in 2011.

The Photo of the Year came from Brunei Darussalam Cricket Association. The photo was taken during an introductory cricket session at the Girl’s High School at the Brunei-Muara district, which is part of BDCA’s school development projects. Since the photo was taken, the school has created its own cricket team.

Other winners this year include Cricket Canada being awarded the honour of Best Promotion and Marketing Programme for their new website and the work done alongside this, including groundbreaking work in live streaming of matches and webcasts of events.

Cricket PNG also took home the Best Junior Participation Initiative for the second year in succession for its success in sustaining interest in regular cricket for a very high number of young people as a follow on to the huge number of children exposed to the game in 2010 in schools.

This year’s judging panel featured current ICC President Sharad Pawar, alongside former ICC presidents David Morgan, Ehsan Mani and Malcolm Gray. John Stephenson, the acting Secretary and Chief Executive of Marylebone Cricket Club, completed the line-up.

ICC Global Development Manager Tim Anderson said of this year’s awards: “Once again it is fantastic to see so many outstanding initiatives and people recognised for their contribution to making cricket a bigger, better global game.

“On behalf of the ICC I would like to congratulate all the award winners and the nominees who were unsuccessful this year – your continued dedication to cricket’s growth around the world is making a substantial difference and we thank you for your efforts.”

The 2011 winners:

Best Overall Cricket Development Programme – Cricket Ireland
Best Women’s Cricket Initiative – Cricket Scotland
Best Junior Participation Initiative – Cricket PNG
Best Cricket Promotion and Marketing Programme – Cricket Canada
Best Spirit of Cricket Initiative – Japan Cricket Association
Photo of the Year – Brunei Darussalam Cricket Association
Volunteer of the Year – Aliya Bauer (Kenya)
Lifetime Service Award – Kanaksi Khimji (Oman)

Prizes – the national cricket bodies of all global winners receive a US$2,000 cricket equipment grant.