DISABILITY CRICKET SUMMER 2022

For the first blog on my authors website, I thought I’d share a blog that I wrote for the ECB website last week, looking forward to a busy Summer of disability cricket.

My book, How Cricket Saved My Life was released on 31st May and it has been a great week received feedback and being told by friends and family how much they have enjoyed the read and how they have recommended it others. Not sure it has quite sunk in yet that I have had a book published so I’m just enjoying the journey.

I’ve got my first book signing next Friday. 4.30pm at New Road County Cricket Ground, Worcester, which I am very much looking forward to.

This time 3 years ago we were looking forward to a fantastic summer of disability cricket. For reasons we are all too familiar with the following two years were full of disappointment where we had to take whatever opportunity we could to play as much cricket as we could as restrictions allowed. So it feels great to say that 2022 promises to be as big a year for disability cricket as we have ever had.

On 3rd June two of our national squads depart these shores to go and compete in Ashes series in Brisbane. Our Deaf squad, led by Devon’s George Greenway and our Learning Disability squad, led by Cheshire’s Chris Edwards will compete in separate series that will run concurrently alongside each other in thee tropical heat of Queensland. The Learning Disability team will be returning to the same venue where they held on to their version of the urn by beating the hosts 8-0 back in 2019. Naturally hopes are high for another winning return but you can bet that Australia will still be hurting from that result and will want to exact some revenge. An exciting series awaits. Our Deaf team by contrast have had much less opportunity to play international cricket over the last few years. They will arrive in Australia for the first time since 2011 for a much anticipated series against the old enemy. In previous versions of the Deaf Ashes the urn was contested through the results of 3 day test matches. Australia won the Ashes in 2004 and Tests in 2008 and 2011 ended in draws and so the Aussies retained the urn. This time the series will be contested through ODI’s and T20’s with points awarded for each victory. With little known about our opposition it will be an interesting series to follow and I am anticipating a closely fought contest.

On the domestic front participation continues to go from strength to strength with more teams than ever participating in ECB supported county competitions. 22 different counties enter 44 different teams into our domestic program and with so many counties developing teams to enter in the future there is continued scope for growth.

In addition to this structured format of competitive cricket, we have set up a ‘development’ platform called CHALLENGE. This allows new teams to play differing formats and introduces players to structured games for the first time (in some cases). The CHALLENGE manifests itself as festivals, pairs cricket, mixed county teams playing 10, 15 or 20 overs a side – very informal, just about fun in a structured environment and showcases the unparalleled flexibility and adaptability of our sport to make it accessible to all sectors of our communities.

Whilst talking about initiatives and participation opportunities I have to give mention to our development partners The Lord’s Taverners. Their Super 1’s entry level disability cricket program continues to grow across the country. This program takes cricket to where disabled people congregate, day centres, SEN schools etc and uses the aforementioned adaptability of our sport to make the game accessible to all who wish to get involved. In addition to the Super 1’s program, some of you may already be familiar with another one of the Taverner’s flagship programmes, Table Cricket. A national competition played by youngsters with high level impairments the National final takes place at Lord’s and is a personal highlight of the cricket calendar. Seeing these youngsters enjoying their version of our sport and being so competitive keeps things real and makes you proud to be involved in grass roots sport. The final this year takes place in the Nursery Pavilion at Lord’s on 17th June and I’d encourage you all to go and take a look – it will make your day.

August sees the launch of the Disability Premier League. After a successful pilot last year and a review of feedback from players, coaches and staff, the tournament kicks of at Loughborough on 28th August. The concept is to provide best v best competition amongst our Learning Disability, Physical Disability and Deaf players. A draft took place on 9th May and the Head Coaches of 4 squads, Hawks, Black Cats, Pirates and Tridents selected their players. The players had been placed into 4 tiers based on their playing performance at international and domestic level and each squad comprises an equal number of players from each impairment group. Sounds a bit complicated, but it wasn’t. The teams will play a round robin tournament over three weekends (28/8 @ Loughborough, 4/9 @ Wokingham CC and 11/9 @ Neston CC) and the top two teams will play a final at Bristol ahead of the England Women’s T20 on 15th September).

Finally, a word about Worcester and the development of the world’s first Inclusive Cricket Centre. The University of Worcester have announced plans to build the centre as part of their continued strategy to be the worlds leading academic centre for inclusive sport and coaching. The centre will house 2 sound proofed net lanes specifically for blind cricketers and the space will double up as a bio-mechanics lab when not being used for blind cricket. The plan is for our England Disability Squads to use the centre as their home and be able to access the disability specific science and medicine support at the university as well as the state of the art facilities at the new centre.

To celebrate the partnership between the ECB, the University of Worcester, WCCC, The Lord’s Taverners and the City of Worcester, the England Physical Disability Team will play a strong Lord’s Taverners XI at New Road on Friday 10th June ahead of the Rapids v Falcons Blast fixture that evening. The disability game starts at 1pm and it would be brilliant to see as many of you there as possible for what should be a great day.

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