12 Days of The Cricket Collective honours national volunteers

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) celebrates the stand-out volunteers across the country in the 12 Days of The Cricket Collective.

The winners of the 2023 Cricket Collective Awards will be announced from today and across the first half of December in the 12 Days of The Cricket Collective.

The awards honour and celebrate the hard work and dedication of cricket volunteers across England and Wales, with one winner revealed per day from December 1 to December 11. The list of winners will be shared in full on December 12.

County boards have been awarding their region’s winners across 11 different categories since the end of the summer, and from that group a panel of experts has chosen the national winners.

This year, cricket will recognise the best volunteers in the country across 11 different categories. A Lifetime Achiever Award will be announced on December 11, while there will also be awards for – amongst other areas – Unsung Hero, Rising Star and Tackling Climate Change.

Amongst the winners was Lifetime Achiever Sajid Patel, who has contributed to cricket in Essex for 25 years, helping to grow participation in the region and take community cricket to new audiences.

In 1998, he started his journey in Leytonstone, then moved into Waltham Forest, Newham and Redbridge where he reached out to children and young people through outreach and engagement work using cricket as a theme.

In 2002, Sajid started a league in West Ham Park that engaged a number of new players, and fast forward to 2010 he was involved in changing the landscape of the game, alongside childhood friend Nahed Patel. Together they set up the very first white-ball and coloured clothing league in the region, which was very successful.

In 2012, Sajid helped to establish and launch the National Cricket League (NCL). At present the NCL has 76 clubs/teams competing across nine divisions on Sundays with majority of fixtures played in Essex and East London.

Sajid has also carried Leytonstone Cricket Club for many years. He is a complete all-rounder in that he is a qualified umpire, cricket Coach, and an accomplished administrator of league cricket. He is a true legend in the Leytonstone ranks and a servant to the game of cricket in the wider Essex region as a volunteer.