Roses Cricket offers girls in Yorkshire new opportunities to play

Roses Cricket, Powered by Dynamos, is the new all-girls Under 11 cricket programme, supported by the Yorkshire Cricket Board (YCB), that has launched across Yorkshire.

Dynamos is the ECB’s national programme for 8 to 11 year-olds who are taking their early steps in cricket and Roses Cricket fits into this vision with its emphasis on encouraging girls specifically.

Doing Yorkshire proud

The response from the club cricket community has been huge with 108 Yorkshire clubs initially showing an interest in Roses Cricket which has led to 67 programmes that are either live or due to start this season.

This includes 30 sessions that are going to be hosted by clubs who’ve never run girls cricket before which shows both the demand and reaches a new audience in those areas.

As with All Stars and Dynamos, there will doubtless be many more clubs who want to be part of this momentum with girls cricket who sign up in the next couple of years.

Fun formats

Clubs are already running Roses Cricket sessions locally and the YCB aim to help facilitate around 20 festivals across Yorkshire where new U11 girls teams can play friendlies and socialise. The plan is to also have Dynamos Leagues too.

The Roses clubs are being supported in delivering fun and inclusive sessions with the many benefits that brings.

At a strategic level, yes, it’s about helping many more girls start and develop their enjoyment of the game in a way they feel comfortable. But the benefits go far beyond that for clubs and volunteers on this journey.

As we know with the existing All Stars and Dynamos programmes, these junior sessions and events bring a welcome boost to clubs through parents, friends and families attending, perhaps helping with sessions, buying food and drinks and forming an association with a club that might last years.

For lots of these cricket clubs, this is an exciting step into the unknown – they’ve never run girls cricket before but it’s a chance to launch something new and develop players, someone whom can be part of junior teams.

Looking ahead

The YCB’s aim for 2026 and onwards is to work closely with regional leagues to develop Roses/U11 leagues to support the continuous development of new Roses Programmes.

There are many reasons to get involved with Roses Cricket as it acts as a bridge for girls to then play softball and hardball in leagues for club teams. But for ECB Premier League clubs, it’s also the direction of travel.

As part of ECB accreditation, clubs will need a girls section in future so while this is an important programme in its own right, it’s also a way for forward-thinking clubs to meet the criteria.

1 June: Roses Festival at Headingley

Another advantage of involvement in this new girls programme is the potential access to events and meeting Yorkshire Women cricketers at Headingley.

On Sunday 1 June, the YCB are hosting a Roses Festival at Yorkshire County Cricket Club; a chance for clubs, parents and their families to come along for a day of fun.

The schedule sees a Roses Festival (11am-12pm), followed by family activities happening around the ground (12.30-2pm) and then spectators can watch Yorkshire Women vs Derbyshire Falcons from 2.30pm.

It’s a blockbuster summer for girls cricket in Yorkshire and here on the website as well as Cricket Yorkshire’s Facebook page, we’ll be sharing news and developments from the recreational game.