Following their ICC European award for the Best Women’s Cricket Initiative, Cricket Scotland has received global recognition as they have been awarded Best Women’s Cricket Initiative for its outstanding work in 2011 at the Pepsi ICC Development Programme Awards 2011.

The women’s game in Scotland is developing rapidly with the integration of both the Women’s National League and the Women’s Scottish Cup along with a number of successful indoor sixes tournaments throughout the season.

Cricket Scotland have also formed a positive partnership with the Girl Guides which has seen 309 girl guides and brownies coached since April 2011 with five clubs linking with their local unit and also 20 leaders have been trained and provided with ideas of how to run cricket games and information on local club contacts and information regarding equipment from Lord’s Taverners.

The Women’s National League was formed in 2011; it saw six clubs form a league which allowed more organised competitive cricket for the 96 women and girls who participated.

It was decided to introduce the National league after a very successful Scottish Cup in 2010, this competition is open to all school, universities and clubs to compete in. With the ever increasing interest in the Women’s game, Cricket Scotland will be looking to double the number of women participating in the league for the 2012 season.

Kari Carswell, Cricket Scotland’s Women’s Cricket Manager, who is also Scotland’s leading ever run-scorer for the Women’s National team said, “After winning this award at European level, we are delighted to follow it up with the ICC Global Award. We have understood the importance of women’s cricket in Scotland and a lot of hard work has been put in over the last few years to get a structure in place that will allow us to develop the game both domestically and internationally.

It’s great to pick up the award we are looking to push on the and the biggest challenge now is to ensure that our programmes are sustainable and continuing to increase participation at all levels.

Over 14,000 girls participated in 2011 and I’m looking forward to this number increasing in 2012. I would like to thank all the clubs, coaches and volunteers that have embraced girls and women’s cricket development in this county. “

As a result of picking up the award Cricket Scotland will receive a US$2,000 cricket equipment grant