2009 ICC Awards

"ICC Declare the BCB the Best Yet Again!"

The BCB is extremely pleased to announce that for a third consecutive year and for the last four out of five years, the BCB has been awarded "ICC 2009 Best Development Programme." This award is particularly important because it is given to the national sports body who has proven excellence in all areas of:

Governance
Management
Cricket operations
Development

The winner of this award has to be an outstanding national cricket body with an excellent national cricket structure that caters for senior and junior players.

In addition, the BCB won the "ICC 2009 Photo of the Year", for picture of Jai Talbot, from Harrington Sound Primary School competing in the Primary School Super Eight Tournament and Mr. Reginald Pearman, President of the BCB won "ICC 2009 Lifetime Service Award," for giving over 38 years to the development of cricket in Bermuda.

Bermuda finished 2nd overall for "ICC 2009 Best Cricket Promotion and Marketing Programme" and "ICC 2009 Best Spirit of Cricket initiative" for the Hiscox 11&U Celebrity Cricket Festival. Overall, we placed in seven out eight awards.

President of the BCB, Mr. Reginald Pearman stated, "Once again I am extremely pleased that the BCB has been recognized for its hard work and dedication to the development of cricket in Bermuda. Winning the ICC Best Development Programme for a third consecutive year validates our work but also shows that we continue to improve and progress in every area of our development programme."

He continued, "The photo of Jai captures what the Cricket Board is about, "Improving Lives through Cricket." Specifically, our programmes provide players with an environment that encourages and requires discipline, focus, communication and teamwork, all of which are crucial to integrate successfully into society as a whole. The BCB provides young players with a fun and safe environment in which they can spend their time after school and on weekends keeping boys and girls active and involved in a sport that they love and on the right path to a successful future. Well done to Jai, her coach, Roxell John and Harrington Sound School for their commitment to cricket development."

Mr. Pearman finished by saying, "I am extremely honoured to receive the "Lifetime Service Award." I enjoy working on the Board and do it for the love and enhancement of the game."

Mr. Neil Speight, Executive Director of the BCB stated, "I am extremely pleased that Reg has been recognized for his many years of commitment to cricket in Bermuda. He is the first Bermudian to win this prestigious award. During his tenure, Reg has been one of the most successful Presidents in the history of the Associate Countries. He has transformed a small volunteer sporting organization into a professionally run, strategically focused business that has become a model of best practice world wide. Mr. Pearman has overseen;

the development of a strategic plan that led to unprecedented $11 million investment in cricket;
qualiﬁcation to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007;
qualiﬁcation to ICC U19 World Cup;
ICC Global Best Overall Development Programme;
developing a comprehensive, award winning, Junior Development Programme; and
achieving certiﬁcation by the National Standards Committee.

Mr. Speight concluded, "On behalf the Executive Board and the BCB staff I would like to congratulate Reg on his success and thank him for his many years of dedication to cricket in Bermuda. This award couldn't have gone to a more deserving person."

In a press release today, ICC Americas Office released:

A total of 63 nominations were received for the eight award categories of the Pepsi ICC Development Programme Annual Awards 2009. Bermuda and Argentina lead the way with 14 and 12 nominations respectively.

Martin Vieira, Regional Development Manager commented, "I congratulate the countries who were active in this project submitting quality nominations to be considered. I am pleased to see that the two countries who were most active captured five awards. Congratulations to the winners and a sincere thank you to the many volunteers in the region, without their support our achievements in the development programme would be severely restricted."

This year Bermuda lead the way with three awards, both Argentina and Brazil captured two, while Chile received one.

Although Argentina and Mexico provided stiff competition in this category, the "Best Overall Cricket Development Programme" award went to the Bermuda Cricket Board for an amazing third consecutive year.

Argentina's new website and quarterly magazine earned them the "Best Cricket Promotion and Marketing Programme" award.

Brazil earned the "Best Women's Cricket Initiative" award for their progress in fielding a National team.

Brazil won their second award for the "Best Junior Cricket Initiative" organizing and hosting a South American U13 championship .

Once again the "Photo of the Year" category engrossed the most nominations for 2009 which made the final decision very difficult for the judges. Bermuda's claimed their second award with the submission "Keep your eye on the ball", which best describes the look of concentration on the young batters face. Panama's "This might hurt a bit" and Bermuda's "I'm going to catch this" were the runners up in this category.

Argentina earned their second award for "Best Spirit of Cricket Initiative in Partnership with UNAIDS and UNICEF" with the "Villas 21 and 24" project in Buenos Aires.

The "Volunteer of the Year" award also attracted several excellent nominations again this year, and demonstrated to be one of the toughest categories to select. The award this year went to Chilean born Miguel Angel Hernandez who continued his tireless efforts to get local children involved. Miguel was followed by Brazil's Matt Featherstone and Argentina's Roberto Prata.

Bermuda obtained their third award this year as their President Reginald Pearman was selected to receive the "Lifetime Service Award" for his 38 years of service to the game.

All ICC Americas Development Programme Award winners will now be nominated for the Global Award in their respective category. The ICC judging panel will then select a global winner from the 5 regions in each of the categories. The Global winners will be announced on February 28, 2010.

ICC Americas Regional Development Manager, Martin Vieira remarked, "I wish all of our Regional winners good luck in the Global judging and thank those countries who actively participated in this year's contest."