Strauss Backs Lord's Taverners Captain's Award

Strauss Backs Lord's Taverners Captain's Award

Andrew Strauss.

©REUTERS/Philip Brown (BRITAIN SPORT CRICKET) Picture Supplied by Action Images

The Lord’s Taverners will launch the new Captain’s Award at the glittering Captain’s Dinner on Wednesday 7th October. The award will celebrate young people who have demonstrated outstanding examples of leadership, teamwork, motivation, inspiration and fair play. The dinner is being staged at The London Hilton in celebration of the 30 living test cricket captains of England.

Unlike captaincy in many other sports, leading a cricket team requires a unique blend of intellect, charisma, fortitude and respect. The Lord’s Taverners has identified five criteria as central to being a great captain:

1.       Leadership – high quality performance and conduct on the field
2.       Teamwork – build team spirit and instil work ethic in a team over a season
3.       Motivation – encourage and get the best from each player in the team
4.       Inspiration – leading by example
5.       Fair Play – always lead a team according to the spirit of the game

The Lord’s Taverners believes that sports like cricket have an important role to play in helping young people to learn these skills and attributes so important to their self-esteem, health, education and future socio-economic potential. 

The inaugural Captain’s Award will be presented to Amy Boler, captain of Portland College’s Table Cricket team who won this year’s Lord’s Taverners National Table Cricket Competition at Lord’s on 12 May.

Table Cricket provides young people with severe physical disabilities with the opportunity to compete in a competitive team game based on the rules of cricket. It is played in special needs schools and gives young people the opportunity to play in a national competition. The emphasis is upon teamwork and sportsmanship in a fun and enjoyable environment.

Andrew Strauss, 2009 Ashes-winning England Captain, said: “In my view a good captain must lead from the front and always be aware of the strengths his or her team possesses and how to use those throughout each game in various playing conditions. Congratulations to every player who receives The Lord’s Taverners Captain’s Award.”

Matthew Patten, Chief Executive of The Lord’s Taverners, said, “Leadership is a precious commodity in today’s ‘Broken Britain’ and the Captain’s Award is designed to recognise and encourage those youngsters, like Amy, who are an inspiration to their teammates on the field and the rest of us off it.”

Applications for the Award (including captain’s name, date of birth and club played for) should be emailed to contact@lordstaverners.org 

A personalised certificate will be emailed to the applicant completely free of charge and the player added to the online Captain’s Award Hall of Fame.

Ticket request forms and further details about the Macquarie Capital sponsored Lord’s Taverners Captains’ Dinner are available online at www.lordstaverners.org. Alternatively, please contact events@lordstaverners.org with queries.

Breaking news, score updates and interviews on Cricket World Live - tune in from Monday to Friday, 10:00 - 16:00 GMT and, get the latest from Cricket World® with Facebook, twitter and YouTube and keep up with the action with the latest cricket TV highlights and interviews.