Promoting the Spirit of Cricket

The success of the Spirit of Cricket initiative depends upon the willingness of players, coaches, officials and administrators at all levels to embrace the concept and apply it in their approach to every game. Since publishing the new Code of Laws, in 2000, MCC has been promoting the Preamble, which discusses the Spirit of Cricket, as actively as possible.

In 2001, MCC initiated The Cowdrey Lecture in memory of Colin Cowdrey, who died in December 2000. The inaugural Lecture was delivered in July 2001 by Richie Benaud to an audience of invited guests. Subsequent Lecturers have been: Barry Richards (in 2002); Sunil Gavaskar (2003); Clive Lloyd (2004); Geoffrey Boycott (2005); Martin Crowe (2006); Christopher Martin-Jenkins (2007); The Most Reverend Dr Desmond Tutu (2008); Adam Gilchrist (2009); and Imran Khan (2010).

Each Lecture has been followed by a high-level Question & Answer Session, hosted by Mark Nicholas and featuring well known panellists including: Nasser Hussain, Michael Vaughan, Paul Collingwood; Dave Richardson, Ian Healy, Jeff Thomson, Steven Finn, Graham Onions, Graeme Swann and more.

Since 2001, an MCC Spirit of Cricket Award has been presented at the Professional Cricketers’ Association end-of-season Awards Dinner to the county team that has displayed the best on-pitch attitude over the course of the previous summer.

Points are given by the umpires to each team at the end of every County Championship, NatWest Pro40 and Twenty20 Cup group match, based on the conduct of all members of the side. Each county’s points tally is logged in a table, and the winning team announced at the PCA Dinner.

MCC will continue to maintain the momentum of its Spirit of Cricket campaign. Further projects are planned to promote MCC's message to cricketers at all levels - both in Britain and overseas - in 2007 and beyond.