The Wisden Cricket Photograph of the Year Competition 2021 is now open for entries

• Top three entries in this year’s Wisden Cricket Photograph of the Year will feature in 2022 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.
• First prize is £1,000, two runners-up each win £400.
• Steve Waugh won the 2020 competition for his image of an early-morning game in the Thar Desert, near Osian in Rajasthan.

The 2021 Wisden Cricket Photograph of the Year competition is now open for entries. Launched in 2010, the contest is open to all photographers, amateur or professional, from anywhere in the world.

It remains free to enter. The only stipulations are that images must have a cricketing theme and have been taken during the 2021 calendar year.

The competition aims to promote and sustain cricket in all of its forms in every corner of the globe, from an international match played in front of thousands, to a game between children on the street.

Steve Waugh won the 2020 competition for his image of an early-morning game in the Thar Desert, near Osian in Rajasthan. You can see his photograph, along with the two runners-up, here.

The best images in the 2021 competition will appear as the first three colour photographs in the 2022 edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. The winner will receive £1,000, and the two runners-up £400 each.

The three winning images, together with seven shortlisted photographs, will be publicly displayed for up to twelve months in a gallery in the entrance area below the Galadari stand at The Kia Oval cricket ground.

The independent judging panel will be chaired by Chris Smith, former chief sports photographer of The Sunday Times. Also on the panel are the acclaimed cricket photographer Patrick Eagar; cricket filming and photography manager Clare Adams; and Nigel Davies, the former art director of The Wisden Cricketer.

The editor of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, Lawrence Booth, said: “The summer of 2021 felt like something approaching a return to normality, and we are very much looking forward to seeing how cricket-loving photographers – professional and amateur – responded to a game that was finding its feet again.

“Each year, our competition has been inundated with superb images from all over the cricketing world, and we fully expect the standard to be as high as ever.”

Entries, to a maximum of three per person, must be submitted online at: www.wisden.com/photographoftheyear

There is no fee for entering. The closing date for entries is 23:59 GMT on Friday January 7, 2022. Winners will be announced in April 2022.

Notes to editors:

About the Wisden Cricket Photograph of the Year:

The Wisden Photograph of the Year was launched in 2010, in partnership with MCC. It is open to all photographers – amateur and professional – from across the world, and the only stipulations are that entries must have been taken during the year of the competition, and in some respect have a cricket theme.

Prizes:

The winning photograph and two runner-up images will be reproduced as the first three images in the colour section of the 2022 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, a copy of which will be provided to each of the top three photographers.

The prize for the winning photograph is £1,000 and a copy of Wisden 2022, plus one-year subscriptions to Wisden Cricket Monthly and The Nightwatchman. Two runners-up each receive £400, and a copy of Wisden 2022, plus one-year subscriptions to Wisden Cricket Monthly and The Nightwatchman.

The 2021 Wisden Cricket Photograph of the Year competition will be judged independently by:

Chris Smith (Chairman of the Judging Panel) has been chief sports photographer for various newspapers, including The Sunday Times for over 30 years. During this time he has covered a diverse range of major sports, such as rugby, football, horse racing, athletics, sailing and boxing, as well as cricket. Chris has been British Sports Photographer of the Year four times, and winner of the Sports Picture of the Year award twice.

Patrick Eagar is widely recognised as the doyen of cricket photography. After over 50 years covering the sport, he retired at the end of the 2011 season. During his professional career he photographed 325 Test matches all around the world, and has published 14 books. In 2011, he was awarded the Doug Gardner Award at the British Sports Journalism Awards and an ECB Special Award.

Nigel Davies was designer and art director of Wisden Cricket Monthly, The Wisden Cricketer and The Cricketer between 1997 and 2015. Since then, he has worked as a freelance designer on a number of contract magazine publications, covering a broad range of subjects, such as HR, banking, the automotive industry, gardening and sports lifestyle. Nigel also curates and researches the back catalogues of esteemed sports photographers.

Clare Adams has been the filming and photography manager at Marylebone Cricket Club for the past 18 years, managing MCC’s picture library and photographing a wide range of activities at Lord’s each year.

For more information please contact:

Toby Phillips
Commercial Manager, Cricket Properties Ltd, in association with Wisden
[email protected]
07930 396017