Cricket East

Grassroots Cricket Awards – 2021

In partnership with the ECB we are delighted to now announce winners of Grassroots Cricket Awards for 2021. These awards are for our brilliant volunteers from the recreational game who have supported our game locally and deserve reward and recognition.

A huge thank you to all who nominated this year, as always we had a vast amount of nominations in and it was difficult to separate winners from nominees in each respective category.

The categories for this year are;

• Connecting Communities – A Club or community organisation which has gone above and beyond the call of cricket to support communities/groups coming back to the game we love.

• Inspired to play – An Individual or group within your club or community organisation going above and beyond to open the game up to new audiences.

• Rising Star Award – Young volunteer making a difference – 11 – 16-year-olds

• Game changer – Young volunteer 17 – 25-year-olds making a difference in the game.

• Unsung hero – Those heroes who impact our game and help us make cricket happen. This could be ground staff, coaches, officials, umpires, or other volunteers.

• Growing the game – A league volunteer, committee member, or administrator going above and beyond to support clubs and help increase the number of games played.

• Lifetime achiever – That one individual who has given many years of service to your club or community group you could not do without.

• Cricket innovators – Someone who has brought new ideas and/or implemented new systems to improve your club or community group.

Our winners from Bedfordshire are;

Chantal Hardy Connecting Communities Bedfordshire
Jo Mcbrearty Inspired to Play Bedfordshire
Sami Younis & Amaan Mehmood Game Changer (17-25) Bedfordshire
Ian Smith Unsung Hero Bedfordshire
Andy Watts Growing the Game Bedfordshire
Bob Plowman Lifetime Achiever Bedfordshire
Nick Foster Cricket Innovators Bedfordshire

Our winners from Huntingdonshire are;

Woodlands Grounds Team Connecting Communities Huntingdonshire
SIT&W CC Coaching Team Inspired to Play Huntingdonshire
Daniel Wells Rising Star Award (11-16) Huntingdonshire
Ash Patel Unsung Hero Huntingdonshire
Geoff Hastings Growing the Game Huntingdonshire
Ian Puckle* Lifetime Achiever Huntingdonshire
Jabeen Naz Maqbool Cricket Innovators Huntingdonshire

*Ian sadly passed away during the 2021 season but we are delighted that his family and representatives from his club Kimbolton CC will be in attendance to accept his award.

All winners will be invited to a celebration event at Northamptonshire County Cricket Club later this summer where they will be presented with their award and spend the day enjoying a County Championship game in hospitality boxes kindly provided by NCCC. We thank them for their support with this event and look forward to what will no doubt be a fantastic day to celebrate the work that goes in to making cricket happen across local clubs and leagues.

On the day we will also be recognising award winners from 2020 – when for obvious reasons we were unable to celebrate in person. Those award winners are listed below;

Michael Cox Connecting Communities Bedfordshire
Phil Johnson #raisethebat Bedfordshire
Roger Lewis Proactive Leadership Bedfordshire
Andrew Keen Connecting Communities Huntingdonshire
Nick Irish #raisethebat Huntingdonshire
Andy Bellamy Proactive Leadership Huntingdonshire

Winners from the 2021 will automatically be nominated for National Awards and we wish all of our winners from Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire the best of luck in the National Awards in their respective categories.