12 December 2011

A university student involved in club cricket in the midlands has been honoured by the ECB with the annual young coach of the year award sponsored by Sky Sports, it was announced at Lord's today.

Lizzie Harrison, a Level Two coach at Burton Latimer CC, near Kettering, won her award for her work with the club and the Northamptonshire girls under-17 squad. The Bedford University student coached Burton Latimer’s under-15 girls to victory in the National Club finals earlier this year, a remarkable achievement.

The ECB awards are designed to recognise significant contribution to the support and development of coaches and coaching in cricket. At the other end of the age scale Les Bishop, 83, from Worcester, won the award for outstanding contribution and services to cricket coaching. As a founder member and former president of the Worcestershire Coaches Association, he has been involved in cricket coaching and administration for more than 60 years.

The 'outstanding coaching achievement' award went to Andy McCrea, a Level Three coach from County Antrim. The ECB citation said McCrea, a teacher, had made a major contribution to talent development in his local area and helped achieved significant participation growth at his club Templepatrick CC. The growth aspect is to be become a major focus for the Club Cricket Conference in the coming years.

The three winners were presented with their awards by England cricketer Ravi Bopara, of Ilford CC, at a special presentation dinner held at Lord’s over the weekend. Now in their fifth year, the awards are made by Sky Sports as part of its wider sponsorship of the ECB’s coach education programme and based on nominations received by the ECB’s Coaches Association.

ECB and Sky Sports recently announced that more than 45,000 coaches had graduated from the Sky Sports ECB coaching scheme since it was launched five years ago, including 11,000 who received new qualifications in 2011 alone.

Sky Sports commentator and former England captain Nasser Hussain said: "This is a fantastic programme that is proving how important coaching is to the game of cricket. Everyone at Sky Sports is immensely proud of our involvement and we congratulate all the winners from the Sky Sports Coach Awards."