ECB Grassroots Cricket Awards 2021 - Please submit your nominations now!

Many will be aware of the Natwest OSCAs that have existed as the national award scheme for volunteers for a long period of time.

From 2021, the OSCAs have been replaced by the new ECB Grassroots Cricket Awards!

Within the message below you will find details of the categories that form part of the Grassroots Cricket Awards 2021 together with information on how you can nominate worthy volunteers from within your clubs and networks. To support the Grassroots Cricket Awards, the ECB has also invested in us as counties to run a programme of volunteer recognition throughout this autumn and winter and again below you will find information about our plans in Wiltshire. 


Grassroots Cricket Awards 2021 Categories:

There are eight categories that form part of the Grassroots Cricket Awards for 2021, and we are looking for nominations for each:

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. 


Nominate someone from your club!

If you would like to nominate someone from your club, association or networks for a Grassroots Cricket Award please note the turnaround is pretty short. We will need to receive your nomination by 5pm next Thursday, 12th August. This is because Wiltshire Cricket will be required to decide upon a winner for each category to be submitted as our county nominee by close of play on Monday 16th August.

To assist you in establishing which category might suit your volunteers the most, please find below some more detailed criteria for each category.

ECB Grassroots Cricket Awards 2021 Categories and Criteria

ECB Grassroots Cricket Awards 2021 Nomination Form

Please also find the nomination form attached that needs to be completed and returned to [email protected] via email by next 12th August. 


County Winners and National Awards:

With Covid-19 continuing to make things challenging from the point of view of large scale events we are not sure at this stage what the national event plans will look like. However, we do know that there will be national award winners and as such we are looking to recognise a county award winner for each category above.

Following the receipt of nominations by 12th August, an appointed group from the Wiltshire Cricket Development Team and Board of Directors will review applications utilising a scoring system provided by the ECB. This will help to establish county winners to be provided to ECB and we will keep those individuals and their nominators informed of what those national plans end up looking like.

However, on a much more exciting note, Wiltshire Cricket would like to recognise a much wider group of volunteers than just the county winners and as such please see some more detail below. 


Local Volunteer Reward and Recognition:

As mentioned above, we will be running a Volunteer Recognition initiative during the course of this autumn/winter to compliment the ECB Grassroots Cricket Awards. More information will follow on our local plans but headline information on our local plans includes: 

  • October 2021 will become Wiltshire Cricket Volunteer Recognition Month (similar principle to Women’s Big Cricket Month)
  • Wiltshire Cricket will run a series of individual events for different audiences during the month of October
  • Professional video footage will be to be produced to support our awards
  • We would like to make contact to thank a minimum of three volunteers from every affiliated club