Photo Credit: Professional Cricketers’ Association
PCA creates partnership with health and life insurer to supply world’s most innovative helmet.
The Professional Cricketers’ Association has extended its relationship with Vitality, the health and life insurer working to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. The evolution of the partnership will see all professional players in England and Wales provided with the most innovative cricket helmet in the world.
The partnership with Vitality enables the provision of the most important element of safety equipment for cricketers. The PCA and Vitality will now work with Masuri to supply its world-leading TrueFit 3D-PRO helmets to professional players.
The most technically advanced cricket helmet ever produced is manufactured using the latest 3D printing techniques to create an internal lattice structure padding system that gives players the best fit and finest level of head protection in the game.
The TF3D-PRO uses head scanning technology for a fully custom fit, with a number of England players wearing them in the recent Ashes and Hundred competition, including Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Heather Knight and Alice Capsey.
The PCA’s partnership with Vitality was initially expanded in 2022 with the health and life insurer securing exposure on the side of player helmets across domestic 50 and 20-over cricket. This allowed the PCA to further invest in critical illness cover for all of its playing members.
Ahead of the 2023 Hundred competition, Vitality wished to further extend its support of professional cricketers with the custom fittings taking place to ensure every male and female player in England and Wales is provided with bespoke head protection from the 2024 season.
This has been enabled through Vitality’s eye for innovation with protection and their mission to reduce risk. Vitality has now extended its existing logo placement on player helmets to include The Hundred. All men’s and women’s players in the 100-ball competition sported the Vitality brand that is entrenched in the game in 2023 and will do so for two further years.
“For the PCA to work with Vitality and Masuri for the benefit of player safety is testament to how they support us as a group of professional players, treating everybody as equal with every player benefiting from this agreement.”
JOS BUTTLER
England Men’s white-ball captain, Jos Buttler, said:
“Having world leading head protection is such a crucial part of the game, especially the way cricket has evolved. Batters are so innovative and the new modern skillset can only be achieved with complete confidence in your safety so this partnership is a huge development.
“I have been fortunate to already wear the TF3D-PRO helmet and the comfort is certainly the best I have experienced.
”For the PCA to work with Vitality and Masuri for the benefit of player safety is testament to how they support us as a group of professional players, treating everybody as equal with every player benefiting from this agreement.”
PCA Chief Executive, Rob Lynch, said:
“The PCA’s partnership with Vitality has quickly become a game-changer for our members through a shared vision to protect the safety of professional players on and off the pitch.
“The role of the PCA is to improve the conditions and safety of its members and this agreement is one that is of mutual benefit and most importantly, will see players in England and Wales provided with world leading head protection.
“This vital agreement has been achieved through the PCA collective rights programme that sees the Association work on the behalf of players to create commercial opportunities. I would also like to acknowledge the support from the ECB in evolving the regulations on player helmet branding.
“PCA members now know they have a critical illness policy and first of its kind custom made helmets until the end of 2025, offering protection to the player and their family which is a key aim for the Association.”
Vitality Programme Managing Director, Nick Read, said:
“At Vitality our core purpose is to make our members healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. Thus, the role of prevention and protection is critical to our mission and acts as the driving force behind everything we do. Continuing our partnership with the PCA to provide all professional players in England and Wales with the most innovative cricket helmet in the world was a clear reflection of this objective and an obvious extension of our continuing support for safety in sport.
“As the title partner of 20-over cricket in the UK, supporting safe and responsible behaviours in the sport is incredibly important to us. By limiting the potential for head injury and concussion, providing these top-of-the-line helmets to professional players is a key step in achieving this.”
Masuri Chief Executive, Sam Miller, said:
“We are confident that the TF3D range is the future of head protection in cricket and we are committed to continuing to develop this technology into the future to maximise the safety it offers wearers, and to make it more and more accessible as the technology evolves.
“The response to TF3D from players around the world has been overwhelming, and we are now seeing governing bodies taking a real interest in making sure their players have access to this latest technology.
“The PCA and Vitality have been extremely proactive in pulling this programme together. Having identified the opportunity to provide a safety benefit to every professional cricketer in England and Wales, the PCA swiftly started work with its partner Vitality Insurance to make that opportunity a reality. Masuri is delighted to be working with such forward thinking partners.”
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.
