The winners of the ‘It’s Not Just Sport, It’s Art’ competition, delivered in association with Surrey Cricket Foundation, can today (Saturday April 29th) be announced.
The ‘…It’s Art’ campaign – launched in December 2022 – was designed to engage with younger audiences during the Winter months and hoped to help foster a stronger connection between young people and the history of the game and power of the sport.
Surrey CCC and Surrey Cricket Foundation challenged young people to recreate iconic photos from the history of Surrey and of cricket at The Kia Oval as art for the chance to win some brilliant prizes.
Young people were able to choose from a collection of remarkable moments and inspiring individuals. Categories included Surrey Today, Surrey Legends and Internationals at The Kia Oval post-2000, and had famous faces to choose from including Sam Curran, Alice Capsey, Freddie Flintoff, Ebony Rainford-Brent and many, many more!
The competition was open to young people up to the age of 16, and to enter, all they needed to do was submit a scan/photo of their artwork alongside a few words about themselves, why they chose their selected picture and, most importantly, tell us why they love cricket!
After 3 months and many entries, we can today announce the 4 winners across the various categories!
Category 1
13-16 years old
The winner in our 13-16 Age Category was Dylan Mulvey, who pieced together 3 of our selected images in what he calls a “celebration of diversity in cricket.”
Dylan combined Jofra Archer’s 6 wickets in 2019, Claire Taylor and Beth Morgan’s victorious moment in 2009 and Hashim Amla’s incredible triple century.
Dylan says: “I really enjoy watching cricket as it is a great event, especially at The Kia Oval. I particularly enjoy being close to the action and have been lucky enough to have met some of the cricket players at a few of the matches I have attended. Cricket is a great team sport and one that I have started playing since joining my school.”
Category 2
11-13 years old
Rayaan Nawaz scooped up our 11-13 prize, with his composite image of Rory Burns and Monte Lynch.
Explaining his decision to merge two images, Rayaan explained “while I was reading through the instructions it said to be creative, so I decided to make my picture on Rory Burns hitting the winning runs, but also Monte Lynch. I did this all because I enjoy batting a lot and enjoy the feeling of getting the winning runs!”
Asked to tell us why he loved cricket, he added: “I love cricket because I have always been inspired to play by my family.”
Category 3
9-11 years old
The winner in the 9-11 category was Oliver Glasgow, with this image of Conor McKerr celebrating hitting the winning runs against Somerset in the Vitality Blast last season.
Oliver told us the first game of cricket he watched was “England v West Indies on TV with Granny” who was – in his words – a “massive ‘Windies’ supporter.”
We’re sure Oliver made his granny proud with this effort, and he says he drew the picture of Conor because “I would love to feel that way one day with a hit I have done for my team in cricket.”
Category 4
Up to 8-years-old
Our fourth and final winner, in the ‘Up to 8-years-old’ category is Naomi Knight.
On why she selected the picture, Naomi said: “I really like Alice Capsey and it is a good sort of picture to draw, with shading and not too much to concentrate on. My daddy and my sister and I actually went to the game that this photo was taken at.”
Asked why she loved cricket, Naomi added: “I find it fun and satisfying when you hit the ball hard and it makes a sound. I also like taking wickets.”
Thank you to everyone who submitted their artwork over the winter months. We loved going through all your pictures and are amazed at the creativity of our youngest fans!
Keep scrolling to see some of the shortlisted entries we received.
Winners have all now been contacted via e-mail.
