The cricket season is not a particularly long one, in comparison to other sports but that does not mean that you should not close it in style. Whether your team has had a good season or not, the end of season is a great time for the team to come together and celebrate. As well as recognising the stand-out performers of the season, the presentation evening is the opportunity for the team to bond and have fun together.
First of all you will need to arrange the venue, so if your cricket club’s function room is free then book it quickly. Then sort out the other details like catering and book a DJ to keep the entertainment going. Catering can be expensive, so the more quotes you can get, the better. You could even ask for some help from people in the club to make sandwiches, hotpot etc. to keep the costs down. If you do not want to spend on a DJ, then you can create a good playlist for the night instead. Ask someone to take responsibility for getting photos of each of the award presentations, so that you can add them to social media or your website if you have one.
The most important part of all is the presentation of the cricket trophies. For many players, this is their favourite part of the season – the night where they pick up their cricket medals and find out if they have won any individual cricket awards.
Prior to the event, you will need to decide which cricket trophies you will be presenting. If you are having a Players’ Player trophy for cricket then you will need to conduct the voting for that. Remember that you may need to pre-order cricket trophies online, so give enough time to make sure they arrive on time with any engravings.
Cricket awards and trophies that usually get given out include:
Best Batsman
Best Bowler
Best Wicketkeeper
Most Man of Match Awards
Players’ Player
Manager’s Player
So you may need to do some analysis to work out the best averages for your players in terms of batting, bowling and wicket keeping. If you have received trophies from competitions that your team has played in throughout the season then make sure that you remember to give these out as well, even if they already got presented at the time.
When you are deciding what type of trophy cricket players would like to receive the most, do a bit of research first. You can buy trophies that are made up from wickets and a ball for the player that has won the bowling award. You can also buy ones showing a player batting for the batsman award or choose from a range of other designs that represent elements of the game.
Despite the very small Ashes trophy being one of the most coveted trophies for players in England, players generally prefer to win large trophies. The bigger the better, is the usual approach. If you look at the ICC Champions Trophy for example, it is a beautiful trophy with a shiny metal finish and a cricket ball on top. The Cricket World Trophy is quite similar with columns that represent stumps and bails and then a golden globe on the top. These are team trophies, as opposed to the more individual player designs that you will want to get for your players.
You should also plan out the cricket awards and trophies presentation format, deciding who will present each one. To make it even more entertaining and professional, you may want to create powerpoint slides to play throughout the presentation. You can add images and statistics to back up the awards e.g. how many votes each player received for Players’ Player or performance statistics like batting averages.
Depending on the character and level of your team, you may also want to add some fun awards into the mix, something that marks a funny story or ‘Longest in the shower’ type of award and present the winner with a certificate for the funny awards. Try and get the length of the presentation so that it is not so long that people get bored but not so short that you just reel out a list of winners. Always leave enough time for people to have a good time after the presentation well before it is closing time! If you have won a competition this season then the ultimate song to finish the night off with has got to be ‘We Are The Champions’.