January 30, 2012

In last year's Pepsi ICC Development Programme Awards, USYCA broke through by winning the Americas Region's "Best Junior Participation Initiative," and the USA has built on that success this year, taking home two awards.

The 2011 Americas Regional winners were announced this past Wednesday, with the USA picking up two of the eight awards. USYCA would like to congratulate both winners.

The award for "Best Women's Cricket Initiative" was bestowed on the Apple Pickers Foundation who made a major impact with their assistance to the USA women's team in preparation for the World Cup qualifying tournament in Bangladesh. APF provided a grant that was used by the team to train in Barbados (arranged by ICC Americas) and Florida. The Apple Pickers Foundation is a charitable organization based in Westerly, Rhode Island, and recently provided a key grant to the USYCA to help bring cricket to American schools.

The second award was for "Photo of the Year" for the photo "In Flight" (seen above). The ICC Americas press release said, "So typical of cricket development at the grass roots level, the combination of an eager player, a ball, a bat and a garbage can as the wicket and you have a future star 'in flight'." We agree. The photo of junior cricket in action was of Rahman Dar, 7, at the time of the photo and was taken by Kathleen O'Rourke. Rahman plays for the Shaheen Junior Cricket Club in Stamford, Connecticut.

The USYCA wishes both our ICC Americas Award winners the best as the ICC judging panel selects the global winners, who will be announced
on February 28, 2011.