ECB to invest £50m in gender equality in cricket

October 25, 2019

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has launched an action plan to transform women’s and girls’ cricket with the fundamental goal of making cricket a gender-balanced sport through a £50m investment over five years. 

ECB wants to enable organisations across the cricket network to recruit more dedicated resources, improve the player experience and increase the opportunities to build careers in the sport.

A portion of this investment will go to the funding of 40 full-time professional, domestic contracts. These contracts will be in addition to the existing England Women centrally contracted players.

ECB has produced a comprehensive ten-point action plan in addition to the funding which aims to transform all elements of women’s and girls’ cricket in England and Wales to increase engagement, grow representation and improve opportunities across the game. The plan focuses on five key objectives:

• Participation: To increase the number of women and girls playing cricket recreationally
• Pathway: To develop aspiring female cricketers (U11-17) as players and people
• Performance: To drive the performance of England women’s cricket through a new semi-professional, eight region structure
• Profile: To elevate the profile of women’s cricket through The Hundred, the England Women’s team and the elite game
• People: To increase the representation of women across the cricket workforce

It was produced following two years of consultation with all 38 Counties and Cricket Wales, and through a detailed analysis of thousands of survey responses from the recreational and elite game.

To test some of the recommendations for the recreational game, ECB has run pilot programmes with over 600 cricket clubs to better understand the essential criteria in creating the most sustainable women’s and girls’ clubs.

Speaking about the new plan, ECB Managing Director, Women’s Cricket, Clare Connor said: “Cricket has been an integral part of my life, as a player and in my role of Managing Director of Women’s Cricket. I have never been more excited by the opportunity in front of us right now.

“Recent initiatives have given women and girls more opportunities to play, such as All Stars Cricket for 5-8-year-olds, the South Asian female activators programme, and the Kia Super League for our most talented domestic cricketers. But to truly transform women’s and girls’ cricket, we must now move from targeted standalone programmes to addressing the whole pathway as one."

ECB Chief Executive Officer, Tom Harrison, added: “During the development of Inspiring Generations, and extensive conversations and research across the game, the strong appetite to transform cricket’s relationship with women and girls was abundantly clear.

“There is tremendous energy across the cricket network to pursue the game’s largest growth opportunity and to increase the number of women and girls playing, watching and volunteering at every level of the game."

England Women’s Captain, Heather Knight also noted: “This action plan is a really exciting next step in the continued growth of women’s cricket. We need more young girls to be inspired to play and those young girls need to be able to see a clear pathway above them that encourages them to continue pursuing the game.

“As England players we’re fortunate enough to meet lots of young girls who love the game and it means so much to us to see how much they love cricket. Much of this plan is about normalising the game for women and girls and I’m excited to see how this increased opportunity takes the game forward.”