The England and Wales Cricket Board has appointed Lord Patel of Bradford to its board of directors, with the Labour peer expected to assist with a renewed push to better connect the governing body with British-Asian communities and promote the game.
Under the new chief executive Tom Harrison and the chairman Colin Graves, there is an acceptance the ECB needs to better understand and support the sport within British-Asian communities – a move which could reap benefits in terms of participation figures and talent development.
There is also a belief that if it is to arrest declining participation figures it will have to promote more informal forms of the sport in playgrounds, parks, streets and on beaches in order to better appeal to young players and fit into hectic modern lifestyles.
Lord Patel of Bradford, a lifelong recreational cricketer who worked for the Yorkshire Cricket Academy as a part-time coach, is among the country’s most respected spokesmen on health, social care and equality. The first British-Asian to be appointed to the 14-strong board, he will replace Lord Morris.
The drive to better connect the ECB with new players and teams, including those who might not naturally support England, will form part of Harrison’s strategic review of all areas of the elite and recreational game.
In order to get people playing cricket more often, there will be continued investment into the successful Chance to Shine charity that seeks to expand the sport in schools. It is aiming to raise £25m over the next five years to invest in schools and community cricket.
But there is also expected to be more emphasis on ways to increase interest in the sport outside the established club structure, with an emphasis on parks, street cricket and – in particular – beach cricket. Since 2005-6, Sport England figures show that the number of adults playing cricket at least once a month has declined from 380,300 to 259,200.
Even more than other team sports, it faces challenges in terms of facilities and attracting young players at a time when the amount of cricket played in state schools has historically been in decline.
The ECB’s new director of participation and growth, Matt Dwyer, who was recruited from Cricket Australia, is expected to join the ECB later this month.
Dwyer will have full overall responsibility for increasing participation in all aspects of the recreational game and is also expected to be involved in a drive to better connect sponsors and commercial partners with the grassroots game. In Australia he also led sales and marketing teams for a range of brands including Mars, Diageo and Nestle.
Like other sports, cricket has also been disproportionately hit by cuts to local-authority budgets that have affected the maintenance of park pitches during the summer. When the former chairman Giles Clarke, now the ECB president, and the former chief executive, David Collier, initially signed an exclusive deal with Sky in 2005 to televise international and domestic cricket, they promised to use the riches to grow participation and the recreational game. But as numbers continue to decline, there is an appetite among the new ECB hierarchy for a fresh approach.
