Counties and cricketing organisations have been urged to grab the second of England and Wales internet hosting the ICC Ladies’s T20 World Cup subsequent month and make 2026 the most important ever 12 months for girls’s cricket.
Leaders from throughout cricket got here collectively on the ECB Annual Basic Assembly (AGM) and Entire Sport Convention at Edgbaston, with the occasion themed round profiting from internet hosting the event.
The 12 months has already obtained off to a powerful begin, with ticket gross sales having surpassed any earlier version of the ICC Ladies’s T20 World Cup, and a record-breaking variety of fixtures for girls’s and women’ grassroots cricket already performed and scheduled in the beginning of this season.
Lengthy-term development
Olympic Gold Medal-winning GB hockey captain Kate Richardson-Walsh spoke at yesterday’s occasion to provide her insights on seizing the second within the highlight, whereas a variety of counties shared what they’re doing to make lasting change.
Richard Thompson, ECB Chair, mentioned: “This 12 months’s AGM was centred on a easy however highly effective ambition — making 2026 the most important 12 months for girls’s cricket that our recreation has ever seen.
“Over the previous decade, by way of important focus and funding we have now remodeled the ladies’s and women’ recreation — doubling the variety of grassroots groups within the final three years, transferring from our first ever home skilled contracts in 2020 to having greater than 150 skilled gamers at the moment, and smashing attendance data 12 months after 12 months. The sport is rising at tempo.
“What is especially vital is that this progress has been a collective effort. Everybody throughout the sport — counties, golf equipment, volunteers and companions — has performed a task in getting us thus far.
“2026 presents a singular alternative to take girls’s cricket into the mainstream, with the house ICC Ladies’s T20 World Cup, the primary girls’s Check at Lord’s, and a summer season of home competitions that can thrill present followers and seize new audiences.
“Our duty now could be clear: to show that momentum into lasting development — in participation, in visibility, and in long-term worth for the sport.
“At present was about aligning behind that ambition, and guaranteeing that collectively we make 2026 a defining 12 months for girls’s cricket.”
Rising participation
In addition to development within the girls’s and women’ recreation, 2025 additionally noticed robust outcomes for the expansion of cricket participation extra usually, together with:
- A document variety of membership cricket fixtures, with 249,000 matches scheduled, up from 240,000 in 2024 and 205,000 in 2022.
- Cricket being delivered in additional colleges for kids with Particular Academic Wants and Disabilities (Extra Studying Wants (ALN) colleges in Wales) – 934 final 12 months, up from 761 the earlier 12 months.
- Cricket is one among solely three workforce sports activities seeing participant development amongst beneath 16s.
Richard Thompson mentioned: “As we try to make cricket probably the most inclusive workforce sport, it’s encouraging to see important progress being made in rising the sport final 12 months, and we look ahead to constructing on this in 2026.
“In addition to wishing England Women all the perfect for his or her World Cup marketing campaign, I’m excited to see our England Males’s workforce bouncing again after the frustration of the Ashes this winter, whereas additionally having an important summer season of home, grassroots and incapacity cricket to take pleasure in.”
Monetary statements
The ECB can also be publishing its Financial Statements for 2025/26.
This has been a massively important 12 months for cricket funds in England and Wales, with greater than £500m having been secured for the skilled and grassroots recreation by way of the gross sales of stakes within the eight groups in The Hundred.
The accounts present that greater than £160m of the sale proceeds has already been paid out to the skilled counties, serving to them both pay down debt, construct reserves or fund revenue-generating tasks to safe their long-term sustainability.
Every skilled county is ready to apply for the rest of its share of the proceeds to be used in any of those methods.
India influence
Away from The Hundred funding course of, it was a constructive 12 months financially with the India Males’s workforce having visited for a gripping five-Check collection.
General, the ECB’s turnover elevated to £409m, which incorporates elevated broadcast and ticketing revenues because of the India Check collection.
By cautious budgeting and a few troublesome selections – together with decreasing headcount – the ECB was in a position to make document contributions to the skilled and leisure recreation, while delivering a £12.6m revenue from business-as-usual operations to construct reserves.
Whereas the home media rights deal provides certainty over a big a part of the ECB’s funds till 2028, the ECB’s revenues are inherently cyclical, given the differing worth of abroad broadcast rights when totally different groups go to.
Because of this, funds are deliberate over a number of years to make sure monetary commitments to the skilled and leisure recreation could be maintained even in years of decrease revenue, which means the ECB expects to document a revenue in some years and a loss in others.
Whereas a white-ball tour by the India Males’s workforce this 12 months is predicted to lead to one other 12 months of robust income in 2026, the ECB anticipates recording a loss in 2027 because of the absence of any such tour.
Six new Honorary Life Vice-Presidents appointed
For the second 12 months working, the ECB has granted six Honorary Life Vice-President Awards to have a good time and recognise people from the skilled and leisure recreation who’ve given lengthy service to the game, or made an distinctive contribution to creating cricket a extra inclusive sport or rising the cricket and breaking down boundaries.
This 12 months’s winners are:
Keith Fletcher OBE
A prolific batter who was England Males’s Captain and later coached the nationwide workforce. Served as President of Essex CCC till the tip of 2025.
Dennis Amiss MBE
An England worldwide for over a decade he devoted greater than 65 years to Warwickshire and the county recreation, serving as participant, Chair, Chief Government and President.
Later served as England Selector and ECB Vice-Chair.
Enid Bakewell MBE
One of the crucial influential figures in girls’s cricket, changing into a trailblazing England all-rounder lengthy earlier than the skilled period.
Scored over 1,500 worldwide runs, took 75 wickets and received the inaugural Ladies’s World Cup with a match-winning 118.
Bharat Patel
Has made an distinctive contribution to cricket and his neighborhood in Leicestershire over greater than 40 years.
Instrumental in creating a training programme for children, and rising the membership’s All Stars and Dynamos provide to greater than 100 individuals, additionally serving to set up a girls’s and women’ setup with greater than 30 members.
Cate Hayes
Devoted greater than 20 years to creating some of the inclusive and profitable junior and ladies’s cricket programmes in Nottinghamshire.
Has helped develop West Bridgfordians CC’s junior part from a small group to greater than 400 gamers throughout all ages group, guaranteeing there are enough volunteers on the membership to supervise a packed calendar of over 200 junior fixtures. Champions girls’s cricket, making a thriving, welcoming pathway for women and girls at WBCC.
Mick Hornsby
Has devoted his life to cricket, representing Eastrington CC in Yorkshire for a few years, umpiring for over a decade and later serving as groundkeeper into his 90s.
His dedication has been so profound that the membership proudly named their pavilion in his honour, and his ardour, loyalty, and affect have formed generations.
Non-executive Director ratification
The appointment of former England Males’s batter and Nationwide Selector Ed Smith to affix the ECB Board as a Non-Government Director was ratified on the AGM. He’ll take up the position from October 1, 2026.
READ MORE: Issy Wong ‘good to go’ for England at T20 World Cup after injury scare
