Cup Match fielding prize is in safe hands despite the downturn

WEDNESDAY, JULY 13: The cricketer with the safest pair of hands in Cup Match will once again be rewarded for his excellence in the field.

Despite the economic downturn and loss of sponsors Butterfield Bank, Safe Hands Award founder Rolfe Commissiong said the fielding incentive is to remain in place this year.

Commissiong’s company, Black Star Communications Limited, is the award’s primary sponsor for this year.

The Safe Hands Award is now in its 14th year of existence.

It was inaugurated in 1998 and was first awarded to Somerset’s Janeiro Tucker.

Since its inception the award has been won eight-times by a Somerset player and five times by a St George’s player.

In 2002, Clay Smith became the first St George’s player to win the award honouring the legacy of St George’s Cup Match legend Calvin ‘Bummy’ Symonds.

Somerset’s Dwayne ‘Sluggo’ Leverock won last year’s award after executing a superb one-handed grab in the slips to dismiss St George’s’ Justin Pitcher on the second day of a rain-hit contest at Somerset Cricket Club.

The veteran left-arm spinner, one of only three players to win the Safe Hands Award multiple times, retired from Cup Match shortly after the match.

Award founder Commissiong said: “It was so fitting that he won the prize last year because it proved to be his final Cup Match appearance.”

In addition to receiving the coveted Calvin ‘Bummy’ Symonds Cup, this year’s eventual recipient will also receive two air travel vouchers to one of the gateway cities and pocket $1,000 in cash.

The winner will be chosen by a panel of judges present at the match.

Commissiong said: “While the player that gets the most spectacular catch usually provides himself with an inside track on the award, if you have a player who frankly has had a superb catch as well as excelled in the field, then that player gets the heads up.

“Also if you have a player that has one spectacular catch and another who may have taken two or three catches that were fairly tough as well, of course it’s going to go to the player who got those two or three catches.

“It’s an intriguing sort of way in terms of the challenge for the judges and I always have faith in them.”