How does ECB strategy for 2025 to 2028 affect recreational cricket?

The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced its updated Inspiring Generations strategy for the next four years.

By 2028, the governing body wants to “become the most inclusive team sport in England and Wales, while at the same time growing and uniting the game and leading it through global transformation”.

While the launch of a cricket strategy document from 2025 to 2028 might sound dry or hard to relate to, the devil is in the detail.

Some of the headlines include:

🎓 Boosting cricket in state secondary schools by training hundreds of secondary school teachers

📈 Investing £3.5m into the most ethnically diverse areas of England and Wales by 2027

🏏 Increasing the number of young volunteers by 50%, adding 3,500 young people by 2028

🗣️ Training thousands of staff and volunteers in anti-discrimination and inclusion

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The ECB’s strategy signposts what is going to happen over the next four-year cycle and therefore where the resources, support and emphasis will be.

From counties and county boards to leagues, clubs, coaches, players and volunteers, everyone will be poring over the details to see how it might affect them.

Let’s look at three of the ECB objectives and how they are set to impact recreational cricket.

1. MAKE CRICKET DIVERSE, INCLUSIVE & ACCESSIBLE

There is a commitment to “invest in creating accessible and inclusive spaces across the professional and recreational game.”

What that looks like here in Yorkshire will become apparent in time but the ECB aim to remove barriers for aspiring cricketers of all backgrounds:

• Deliver the new Cricket Cities programme to engage more ethnically diverse communities
  
• Boost access to cricket for state school students through ECB’s State School Action Plan
  
• Support talented young people to fulfil their potential through widening access to talent pathway programmes

2. TRANSFORM WOMEN & GIRLS CRICKET

The ECB’s goal of “cricket to be seen as just as much a sport for girls as it is for boys” is about wanting to increase perception of cricket as gender equal to 65%.

If that figure seems arbitrary, the perception of cricket ultimately comes from where it’s seen, played, coached and discussed.

To that end, get ready for a massive, concerted effort across counties with the ECB’s ambition of “growing the number of clubs with a girls’ section.”

Growing girls’ sections at clubs

In Yorkshire, there are now 300+ women’s and girl’s teams in Yorkshire – this has trebled from 2020 and is expected to rise significantly in the coming years.

Back in March, there were 195 women’s and girls’ clubs in Yorkshire (up for 83 in 2020) so things are already happening – and quickly.

The next phase of this growth will require more places to play, along with a super-charged recruitment drive for volunteers, coaches, umpires and all of the other threads beyond bats and balls.

On many fronts, things have been turbulent and exciting in Yorkshire. When are they not? But, we should be very proud of how women and girls cricket is evolving.

It’s not just the volume of players, coaches, volunteers, clubs and leagues already operating. It’s the individual stories and the way the game is changing lives.

Going forwards, how the growth in women and girls cricket at grassroots is managed and also how it links in with the professional game will be worth watching closely.

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As for the ECB’s commitments, they will:

• Transition more girls from schools and junior club programmes to create more sustainable girls’ sections at clubs.
  
• Improve County-wide recreational playing offers, including growing league structures, for women and girls to play.
  
• Invest in the people, including coaches, that enable women’s and girls’ recreational cricket to happen.
  

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My first reaction to this strategic stuff is overwhelmingly positive, I mean, why wouldn’t it be?

Things are happening that once felt light years away. Inevitably, my journalistic excavating follows closely behind!

Cricket clubs will play a huge role, as they have to date, in how much of this is achieved and in what way. I come back to a topic I have talked about for years: Volunteer recruitment.

It will be so important.

A new generation of volunteers

The same stalwarts can’t all double or treble the number of teams at a club but equally, that offers a chance to freshen up committees, bring in new ways of thinking and provide invaluable support too.

Finding helpers in communities and empowering them to get involved in grassroots cricket will be key to hitting the ambitious targets being set.

Chuck in committees, personalities and priorities, even within a cricket club, and things are bound to get interesting.

✍️ If you get a moment, have a read our Women and Girls’ Cricket Hub for interviews, club visits and podcasts.

3. CONNECT COMMUNITIES THROUGH PLAY

The ECB state that they want to: “increase the reach, relevance and revenue of the recreational game.” Their metric for success is the target of “600,000 kids to be playing in an average week.”

If you’re curious, there are some background stats included:

• Around 2.5m active cricketers, with 1.4m under 16s, of whom 550,000 are playing in an average week.
  
• 5,650 active clubs, 2,600 junior teams and 120 disability champion clubs.

The ECB aims to:

• Simplify and streamline the digital experience of participating in the game for players and volunteers
• Improve the experience and diversity of volunteers through the Volunteer Action Plan
• Strengthen affiliation and support for clubs and leagues

The points above feel vital for recreational cricket – without the detail to know how this actually looks. A future Cricket Yorkshire interview with the ECB perhaps…

Cricket in schools

In addition, the drive to get more cricket into state schools kicks up a notch through their State School Action Plan. The target is cricket for 850,000 young people, as well as building more hubs across the country like the dome at Bradford Park Avenue.

Linking in cricket clubs with more schools and transitioning pupils through All Stars and Dynamos will continue.

As ever, building relationships with teachers and winning the argument that cricket is worth investing time and money in dictates how many schools and where this happens.

Meanwhile, the Ethnically Diverse Communities Action Plan has lots of important momentum. Through the ACE programme, it will support 7,000 young people from Black communities across seven cities.

Funding

Many already keep a close eye on all funding opportunities from the ECB, Sport England and other partners.

The ECB has committed to “invest in transformative projects through the Game Changer Fund” – I don’t know whether that’s an existing fund or one for the future, I could find no reference to it.

However, the Grass Pitch Improvement Fund (GPIF) did launch in 2024 and there is a major push to:

• Improving the quality of squares and outfields (for grass pitches rated ‘unsuitable’ or ‘basic’ to improve to at least ‘good’)
• Creating sustainable management of sites (through irrigation and machinery improvements)
• Installing hybrid pitches to increase playing capacity

OVER TO YOU… what do you think? Leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

Thanks for reading – plenty of food for thought – and I will return to the ECB’s strategy in future months to look at what’s happening here in Yorkshire.

Change for the recreational game is coming, with lots of opportunities and ways to get involved.

Want to read more?

🏏 You can read the ECB’s Inspiring Generations Strategy for 2025-28.

🏏 Our women and girls hub is packed with interviews, podcasts, photos and match coverage.

🏏 Read our club cricket headlines