Ben Stokes and other members of England’s Cricket World Cup-winning squad have been recognised in a New Year Honours list which also features a large contingent of female sports stars and administrators.
All-rounder Stokes has been awarded an OBE after he grabbed the headlines in a dramatic summer of cricket. He scored an unbeaten 84 as England became world champions with victory over New Zealand in July, and followed it up six weeks later with a match-winning 135 not out in the third Ashes Test at Headingley.
Eoin Morgan, who captained the team to World Cup glory, has been made a CBE while wicketkeeper Jos Buttler and England’s top run-scorer in the tournament and Test skipper Joe Root have both been given MBEs.
Australian Trevor Bayliss, the coach of England’s World Cup-winning side, has been awarded an OBE while Colin Graves, the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, receives a CBE.
Morgan said: “I’m very proud to have been awarded a CBE. Winning the World Cup has been a dream come true and the honours and awards that have come since that day at Lord’s really mean a lot to everyone connected with the team.
“The events of that day at Lord’s were the result of many years of hard work and dedication, and I see this honour – and the honours for my team-mates – as honours for the whole team, for everything they put into winning that tournament and getting over the line.”
Before the third day of the Boxing Day Test against South Africa in Centurion, Stokes told Sky: “It’s a special achievement I guess. Awards like these aren’t what you play the game for but I guess they come along when you do well and particularly when you do well as a team.
“As everybody has said, it’s a team effort to get these awards and we’ll be going to collect them on behalf of the team.”
A knighthood has been awarded to Manchester-based former West Indies cricket captain Clive Lloyd, who skippered the side that came to dominate the sport in the 1970s and 1980s. Gordon Greenidge, an opening batsman in that same all-conquering West Indies side, has also been knighted on the recommendation of the government of his native Barbados.
Alan Knott, regarded as one of the game’s greatest-ever wicketkeepers, was awarded an MBE.
A wide range of female competitors and sports leaders have also secured awards.
Baroness Sue Campbell, the director of women’s football at the Football Association, has been awarded a damehood for services to sport having also served as chair of UK Sport between 2003 and 2013, a period which saw Team GB take great strides up the Olympic and Paralympic medals tables.
Campbell picked out the lighting of the Olympic flame at the 2012 Games in London by young children aspiring to be top athletes as the highlight of her stellar career in sport.
“I’ve been in two worlds – I’ve been in youth sport a lot and I’ve been in sporting excellence and to me the opening of the Olympic Games in London where we had the six young people run around the track and light the flame, rather than a celebrity… it was wonderful that the celebrities handed the torch on,” she told the PA news agency.
“It felt like my two worlds uniting in one moment, it felt pretty special to be at the opening of the London Olympics.”
Solheim Cup-winning captain Catriona Matthew and two-time Olympic taekwondo champion Jade Jones have been awarded an OBE, along with Rosemary Mayglothling, who served as technical director at British Rowing between 2001 and 2016 and oversaw huge success.
Jill Scott, part of the England football squad which reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in France in the summer, receives an MBE, as do England netball stars Serena Guthrie and Joanne Harten, television sports presenter Gabby Logan, Olympic heptathlon bronze medallist Kelly Sotherton, former world squash champion Laura Massaro and British Gymnastics chief executive Jane Allen.
Scott, who has made more World Cup finals appearances than any England player in history with 21, revealed she considering quitting the sport as a youngster.
She told PA: “There’s been tough times – I remember going away on an England camp when I was 14, and I never got selected then for four years.
“It was really difficult because a couple of my team-mates were being picked.
“Standing here now, I think I’ve got 146 caps for England, so I’m glad I made that decision not to quit.”
There is also an MBE for Lizzie Jones, who founded the Danny Jones Defibrillator Fund in memory of her husband who died from an undiagnosed heart condition during a rugby league match.
Two of the biggest names in horse racing, trainers Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson, have both been awarded OBEs.
Nicholls has been jump racing’s champion trainer 11 times, while Henderson has achieved the same feat five times.
Former Northern Ireland football captain Aaron Hughes, who won 112 caps for his country, has been awarded an MBE.
