LAHORE: The International Cricket Council on Wednesday announced the global winners of the ICC Development Awards for 2020, which showcase the outstanding work undertaken by Members which has continued to grow cricket in emerging markets in partnership with the ICC. Following the announcement of the 20 regional winners across the four categories earlier this month, Argentina, Brazil, Uganda and Vanuatu have been unveiled as the global winners after their outstanding contribution to the sport through four exceptional programmes in 2020. The winners were identified by a global independent panel consisting of 12 leaders including ICC Full Member Chief Executives, current and former international players, media representatives and other members of the cricket family. The global award for the ICC Development Initiative of the Year has been awarded to Cricket Argentina for producing 17 coaching, umpiring and scoring courses in Spanish to attract local audiences in South America to cricket. Cricket Brazil has been awarded the 100% Cricket Female Cricket Initiative of the Year after taking a huge step forward in the development of the women’s game in South America by awarding 14 professional central contracts to the women’s national team. The ICC Digital Fan Engagement of the Year has been awarded to the Vanuatu Cricket Association for providing cricket to fans during the pandemic when the Women’s T20 Grand Final was the only live sporting event available. Vanuatu with a population of only 300,000 used the opportunity to reach over 16 million people through live streaming of the Grand Final and the Vanuatu T10 Blast. This has resulted in more people engaging with the sport and cricket participants in Vanuatu. The Uganda Cricket Association has won the Cricket 4 Good Social Impact Initiative of the Year for supporting hundreds of their players, volunteers and their families through a COVID-19 relief programme. By November 2020, 1500 people had benefitted by the relief which had reached players, coaches, umpires and school teachers in the form of food, soap, financial aid, psychological support and an invite for people to take part in online courses on financial literacy.