LONG-SERVING official Steve Isaac has been rewarded with an OSCA – an Outstanding Services to Cricket Award.

Steve is widely-known throughout Essex and Suffolk in his role as fixtures and results secretary of the Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship.

But it is for his sterling efforts as organiser of the Braintree District Indoor League, which he has run for 31 years, that he has been recognised.

Steve, whose title these days is fixtures and publications secretary of the league which includes running the website, was gobsmacked to receive the award, which is run by the England and Wales Cricket Board in conjunction with NatWest.

He said: “I was shocked because I knew absolutely nothing about it.

“I have no idea who nominated me, but I am very pleased because very few people get these awards.”

The Braintree District Indoor League started in 1979, and Steve, who is 59, took over its administration in the 1981/82 season. The league started out of Notley Sports Centre in Braintree and in the early 1980s Braintree Leisure Centre also began to stage matches.

It has had 40 teams, split into five divisions of eights, since 1987, and in seven of the last eight years – Braintree five times, Coggeshall and Witham once each – has supplied the Essex indoor champions, although no side has ever gone on to national success.