Photo Credit: Professional Cricketers’ Association
Six hoping for personal development reward after record number of applicants.
Six PCA members are hoping to be rewarded for their personal development away from the cricket pitch as they are shortlisted for this year’s Futures Awards, supported by Lodders Solicitors.
This year’s awards are split into three categories: Tammy Beaumont and Abi Sakande are shortlisted in the Current Player category, Joe Cooke and Phoebe Graham in the Newcomer category and Vishal Tripathi and Ollie Westbury in the Past Player category, all of whom were shortlisted following record levels of applications.
This year’s Futures Awards were supported by Lodders for the very first time, with four candidates travelling to the law firm’s Cheltenham office on Tuesday 7 December to present their personal development progress to a panel of PCA and Lodders staff, whilst Beaumont and Graham attended virtually.
With four prizes on offer, one Futures Award winner from each of the categories will be decided by the panel based on the personal development commitments they have made as well as the quality of their presentation. There will also be an Overall winner for 2021, and the four main winners will be officially announced on Tuesday 14 December.
The winners will receive a monetary prize to be reinvested in their personal development, with successful PCA members also benefiting from a comprehensive IT package from our partners at Lucidica. In addition, every shortlisted candidate at the venue received a 30-minute consultation on a professional area of their choice from a Lodders representative.
The six candidates will now nervously await the final results as they hope to follow in the footsteps of last year’s main winners Andrew Salter and Lyndon James.
Here is a brief summary of how each of this year’s Futures Awards candidates has been broadening their horizons away from the cricket pitch:
Current Player
Tammy Beaumont (England)
England batter Beaumont used her time during the Covid-enforced lockdown in 2020 to further her personal development in a number of areas including broadcasting, property and entrepreneurship. The 30-year-old’s main focus, however, has been on setting up and developing The Inside Edge People Ltd alongside her business partner. The new company is a management consultancy which helps corporate clients to develop healthier and happier employees through workshops, coaching and interventions provided by Beaumont’s business.
Abi Sakande (Leicestershire)
Released by Sussex in October 2019, Sakande used his free time during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic to explore multiple avenues outside of cricket before he was signed by Leicestershire during the 2021 season. Fostering inclusivity in cricket is high on the Sakande’s agenda, the 27-year-old playing a key role with both the PCA Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Working Group as well as the Sussex Cricket Board’s EDI sub-committee. However, if successful in this year’s Futures Awards, Sakande will use his prize to fund fieldwork for his MSc in Environmental Anthropology from the University of Kent.
Newcomer
Joe Cooke (Glamorgan)
Glamorgan man Cooke has been leading the player voice on climate change through his sustainability work at the Cardiff-based club as well as numerous campaigns with Friends of the Earth Cymru. His work has been featured on BBC Wales and Sky Sports, and he recently sat on athlete panels at the historic COP26 conference in Glasgow. If successful, the 24-year-old is hoping to use his Futures Awards prize to set up his own environmental consultancy business.
Phoebe Graham (Thunder)
Having left her job at broadcaster Sky to become a professional cricketer at the age of 29, Graham now hopes to use her past professional experience to build for her future outside of the game. The Thunder bowler has set up her own business, TipnFlip, which aims to change perceptions of females within sport and create progress cultural environments which allow them to thrive. Graham would use her Futures Awards prize to continue growing the business and reach as many aspiring athletes as possible.
Past Player
Vishal Tripathi
Tripathi shared his incredible personal development journey towards becoming a fully qualified doctor as part of the PCA’s 2021 Futures Week. The 33-year-old hopes to continue the story that began upon his retirement in 2012 by investing his potential Futures Awards prize in further postgraduate exams and training courses to hone his skills as a medical professional. He is also keen to use the opportunity to inspire more professional cricketers to follow his path from the professional game into medicine.
Ollie Westbury
Since leaving Worcestershire at the end of the 2020 season, budding journalist Westbury has pursued his passion for a second career in the media with the likes of the Wolverhampton Express & Star, County Cricket Matters and even the PCA’s in-house communications team. The 24-year-old is undertaking his work placements alongside an NCTJ Diploma in Journalism from the City of Wolverhampton College, which he hopes to fund with his Futures Award prize.
Find out more about the PCA Futures Awards supported by Lodders Solicitors, as well as the PCA’s wider Personal Development and Welfare Programme (PDWP).
Name of Author: Professional Cricketers Association
The Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA), founded in 1967 by former England fast bowler Fred Rumsey as the Cricketers’ Association, represents past and present first-class cricketers in England and Wales. In the 1970s, the PCA established a standard employment contract and minimum wage for professional cricketers. It also helped create a pension scheme in 1995 and launched the magazine All Out Cricket and the ACE UK Educational Programme in 2002.
