The Women's Game: Private Education - the Way to Elite Cricket

 

Want your daughter to play cricket for England? Send her to private school

With facilities good enough to make Test-playing countries jealous, elitism in the English women’s game is growing to match the men’s

Sonia Twigg 27/05

England’s leading private schools are well established as mini academies when it comes to men’s cricket and that battle to secure the next generation’s most coveted talent has now spread into the women’s game.

As of October 2024, just 29 per cent of players in the women’s professional game came from a private school background, compared with 50 per cent of male cricketers, but further down the pathway the numbers become more skewed towards those from fee-paying establishments: 42 per cent at county age group level.

Of the 19 women’s players centrally-contracted by England, 12 went to private schools or 63 per cent. The figure for the men’s players with a central contract is almost identical, standing at 64 per cent, of those educated in the United Kingdom. But when England Women won the World Cup in front of a sold-out Lord’s in 2017, just three of the starting XI had attended a fee-paying school.

Three years ago Telegraph Sport revealed that agents, parents and school directors of cricket were offering bespoke scholarships and 110 per cent-off fees to talented players. More recently, those same schools have turned their attention to women’s cricket.

‘Our school had three girls playing for England’

Directors of cricket from leading private schools have spoken to Telegraph Sport about the rise in the girls’ game over the past decade, to the extent that at one school highly-rated players can drop an academic subject to take cricket instead.

Bede’s in Brighton, which charges full boarders up to £51,075 a year, has a scholarship for players from Barbados, established in conjunction with the Barbados Cricket Association. It is a pathway trodden by the likes of Shai Hope, who now plays for the West Indies men’s team, but one of the current scholars is NaiJanni Cumberbatch, who represents women’s franchise side Barbados Pride and the West Indies Under-19s.

At Bede’s, Cumberbatch will play boys’ cricket, probably in the second XI, the same team that England international Ryana MacDonald-Gay captained during her time at the school. Students from South Africa have also been in contact with the school, such is its reputation for producing cricketers.

“We’ve had three girls playing for England at the same time which is quite unique,” Bede’s director of cricket, Alan Wells, explains to Telegraph Sport. “I can’t imagine that’s happened for any other school. We had Alice Capsey, Freya Kemp and Ryana MacDonald-Gay all playing for England at the same time in the Ashes and it’s a rich heritage of girls’ cricket that we have here. For those three to be representing England, all coming through our system here, is very special for us obviously.”

‘Drop a GCSE and do cricket instead’

Cricket might once have been considered a summer sport, but at the majority of these schools it has become a year-round programme, starting at Bede’s as early as September. The goal for the schools is not just to perform against others, but establish themselves as pathways for professional cricketers.

Eight years ago, Wells started an academy at Bede’s, offering cricket lessons instead of a subject, with students selecting the sport as part of their curriculum.

“As long as they’re of a certain standard they can choose cricket as part of their timetable and then beyond that going into Years 10 and 11 and GCSE years, in consultation with their parents, if we feel that a young girl cricketer or boy has the potential to have a career, they’re on a career pathway, then they can drop a GCSE and do cricket instead,” Wells explains.

“So the better cricketers at the school will be getting up to eight hours per week of contact time with our coaches here. That gives us the ability to have the contact time with the students that’s needed if they’re on a career pathway.”

Roedean was one of the earliest schools to adopt cricket. The girls’ school has played cricket from as early as the 1890s, long before there was any option of a professional career or even women’s international cricket.

Today it has a wealth of cricketing talent, although not as many scholarships as some of the others, with more given to those from netball, hockey or swimming backgrounds. Mike Smethurst, the school’s director of cricket, says: “We’ve got girls in county cricket. We’ve got girls who play for Hampshire and we’ve got a lot of girls below that who play at club level as well.”

The likes of Shrewsbury and Millfield were earlier supporters of women’s cricket, with Issy Wong having attended the former, while Sedbergh and Repton, who have won three national titles in the last two years for cricket, have adopted the sport in the last decade. Players join the schools on means-tested bursaries with typical scholarships capped at just 10 per cent of fees, but for exceptional sporting talent, exemptions are common.

At Repton, where Martin Speight is the director of cricket, there are a number of boys and girls involved in county cricket. He says: “There’s a lot of academy and even players that are playing county second XI or county first-team cricket now. Someone like Harry Moore, we won’t see much of this year because he’ll be playing for Derbyshire or England Lions, and I think the girls is moving that way.”

Growing elitism in women’s game

In women’s cricket there are still far more players who attended state schools compared with private than in the men’s game. Warwickshire for example have just four players out of 15 in the senior squad from fee-paying schools and five of 13 in the academy. The Lancashire Academy is a similar picture, with just three private school attendees of the 13 in their development group. Yet there are a growing number of female players coming through the private schools pathway – and it is easy to see the appeal.

Smethurst, who works in the boys’ cricket pathway at Sussex explains how boys attending state schools are offered an extra coaching session per week by the county, to try to close the gap with private school students, but it is hard to contend with the eight hours a week of cricket time some can receive.

The facilities at certain schools are enough to make some counties, if not the smaller Test-playing nations, jealous. In fact, Millfield has been used by international travelling sides as a base because of the quality of its facilities. In 2020, Millfield finished a £2.6 million investment in its golf and cricket centres. The cricket one includes five nets, specialist technology and a 4G fielding area – to complement its existing six pitches and eight outdoor nets.

Richard Gould, the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, has stated his intention and desire for cricket to become the country’s most inclusive sport, with the governing body having a clear vision, and an action plan, to do this.

The ECB wants to invest millions and train hundreds, partly in association with programmes like ACE, Chance to Shine and the MCC Foundation to introduce and expand cricket in state schools, which may draw more to the game at grass-roots level.

However, there is no way for a state school, particularly one in an inner city, to compete on an even playing field against a school like Millfield, say, that has nets specifically designed to replicate the bounce found in Australia and the spin of India.

The opportunity to develop skills at one of these elite schools that almost double as academies would be almost impossible for a burgeoning cricketer, or their parents, to turn down.

27/05

Simplifying it whilst making it more complicated?

Are bonus points the direction for a cut men's competition in future season?

18/05

More cricket should be played at out-grounds like Fenner’s

Plentiful open space, greenery and glorious sunshine convinced me that the Women’s T20 County Cup is onto something

Sonia Twigg

The list of cricketing greats who have played at Fenner’s Cricket Ground in Cambridge includes a plethora of England captains and a certain Don Bradman.

Michael Atherton was a regular here during his years as a Cambridge student as were Mike Brealey, Peter May and Ted Dexter. Jack Hobbs grew up playing here, too.

This Saturday, instead of being a nod to the past, the storied Cambridge ground showcased a glimpse of the future when it was used for one of the ECB’s newest competitions, the Women’s T20 County Cup.

The competition was conceived to bridge the gap between the professional and recreational game and the FA Cup-style straight knockout (with the professional sides joining in the third round) includes all the minor counties, and those in tiers one and two.

As far as out-grounds go, Fenner’s ticks a lot of boxes. Large expanses of grass where there was once an athletics track, the opportunity to bring your own deckchair, wooden seating, a wooden pavilion and tall trees at almost every corner. It is a stone’s throw from the city centre and one of the oldest grounds in the country.

As I sat on the bench in the sun in front of the groundsman’s hut, which was designated for “media” it felt more like watching a recreational game than one on the cusp of being professional.

Beth Barrett-Wild, the director of the women’s professional game at the ECB, has said she was more excited about tier two than the top professional one, but significant progress is needed to have some competitive cricket.

One of the overs bowled included eight wides, while there were dropped catches and missed fielding that club cricketers would have been disappointed with.

Players at every level make mistakes. After all, at the start of the year, England Women’s side dropped eight catches in a single day of Test cricket during their game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

On Saturday, tickets were free, the weather perfect, and as one Cambridgeshire player said in jest to another as Kent piled on the runs: “It could be worse; it could be freezing.”

Similar to the FA Cup final, an upset would have been welcome, and there was a clear gap between the sides, but for the smattering of people around the ground, it was an enjoyable afternoon’s cricket.

Refreshingly, the groundsman did not decide to bring the boundaries in close simply because it was women’s cricket, and nor was it needed. Kent happily piled on the runs in the first innings after being put in to bat, hitting 192 for three from their 20 overs, winning by 80 runs in the end. Although it is worth noting that the young Cambridgeshire side conceded 22 extras, including 17 wides.

But the context cannot be forgotten. Cambridgeshire were given just £30,000 funding from the ECB this year, and for taking part in this competition they had to comply with professional regulations. At a cost to the county new helmets had to be issued because in this tournament, stem guards to protect the neck are mandatory.

There is also a requirement for two “super soppers” to soak up water, which one national county had to rent at a reported cost of more than £600 per day. It is a far cry from the millions put into the game at the higher levels, and the realities can hit hard.

But for those on the field, the new competition is exciting and offers the opportunity to impress.

“It’s been a pretty cool experience to play,” Cambridge’s Jess Pugh told Telegraph Sport sitting on the outfield after close of play. “To get the experience to play Kent, I mean the result didn’t go our way but it’s a great opportunity to see where we are compared to them.”

At this level, there are realities the professional sides do not have to deal with. When asked about their trip to Northumberland in the previous round, Pugh, who has only just turned 18, said: “We struggled a bit with availability because of obviously how young our team is.

“Some people are mid-exam season, so they’re not going to be able to get it off.”

Laura Robinson, her team-mate, who sometimes has to take annual leave from her job to play matches, added: “It makes it easier now that Cambridge are actually paying for those facilities like hotels and contributing to travel. That makes it a lot easier on our part to play those away games and again, play against different types of cricket.”

There are certainly far worse ways to spend an afternoon than sitting and watching cricket at a historic ground that was leased to the University in 1848 for the purpose of playing cricket, and which hosted its first first-class match the same year.

I came away with no doubt that more matches should be played on grounds like this one.

10/05

10 Retire Outs

07/05

MCC Membership

02/05

Trans-ban from Women's and girl's' cricket

01/05

Lord's Final and Major venues for tournament - but Trent Bridge misses out.

29/04

New Captain

20/04

New Teams, New Hope

17/04

Funding for ACB

13/04

ICC Taskforce to aid Afghan Women

10/04

Turning Point

03/04

Closing the Gap is "realistic"

02/04

Players accountable for fitness

01/04

New Head Girl Coach

23/03

Lottie Backing

22/03

Knight sacked

21/03

Lewis Sacked

Reward for 16-0 thrashing

06/03

PCA

Mind the Gap Heather 

TheBlaze Academy 2025 again highlighting that these young women do not represent Nottinghamshire, some having come through a Derbyshire system.

28/02

Izzy WONG

11/02

WWC Match Fixer

10/02

Tom Poynton talks Tier 2

09/02

Not wanting to rattle anyone's cage, but happy birthday to Blaze's Marie Kelly - 29 today

Lab assessment confirms bowler’s action as ‘illegal’.
PTG Editor.
Friday, 7 February 2025.
PTG 4761-22828.

Ireland’s Aimee Maguire has been suspended from bowling in international cricket with immediate effect after an independent assessment confirmed that the left-arm spinner uses an illegal bowling action.  The 18-year-old was reported by match officials for a suspect bowling action during the first One Day International of the Women’s Championship series against India in Rajkot last month (PTG 4733-22718, 12 January 2025).

Maguire subsequently underwent a bowling assessment at the International Cricket Council (ICC) Accredited testing centre in Loughborough where it was revealed that the amount of elbow extension in her bowling action exceeds the 15-degree level of tolerance permitted under the ICC Illegal Bowling Regulations.  Her suspension will remain in effect until she undergoes a re-assessment of her bowling action which confirms that she can bowl with a legal action.

01/02

Australia 16-0 England

29/01

Why are Australia SO MUCH BETTER?

25/01

As England Women's car crash of an Ashes tour continues today, is this man in denial? 

What does this all say about the massive promotion and investment in the women's game at the moment? Are we on a learning curve, where we're actually still at the very bottom of where we need to get to be competitive?

21/01

Somerset County Cricket Club are delighted to be able to announce that more than 500 Women’s Memberships have been purchased since Membership went on sale.

2025 will see a professional Somerset women’s team take to the field for the first time and in this new era, we are offering Women’s cricket as part of a separate Membership package.

Cold Shoulders Woeful England Women not taking criticism well. 

14/01

ICC Did Nothing...

08/01

Three Tests Ashes? Beaumont says

Match officials for women’s Ashes series announced. .
PTG Editor.
Saturday, 4 January 2024.
PTG 4725-22679.

Kent Hannam has been confirmed as the match referee for the coming seven-match women’s Ashes series, three One Day Internationals, three Twenty20 Internationals, and a Test, and as previously reported, so have the females involved in Claire Polosak and Eloise Sheridan in on-field and TV roles, and Lisa McCabe in fourth umpire spots (PTG 4721-22662, 31 December 2024). Given McCabe is now on the International Cricket Council’s third-tier International Umpires Panel (IUP) (PTG 4723-22671, 2 January 2025), her appointments suggest Cricket Australia selectors may have questions about her abilities.


Meanwhile, five male umpires will also be involved, Shawn Craig being on-field in one of the ODIs, and the third umpire in another and the Test, Phillip Gillespie will be on-field on one of the ODIs and a T20I, Ben Treloar will be on-field and the third umpire once each in T20Is, Shared Patel the fourth umpire in both an ODI and a T20I, and Roberto Howard the fourth umpire in two T20Is. Craig and Gillespie are both male members of Australia’s IUP contingent.


Jan Howard and Staff Shaw will be the scorers for the Test in Melbourne, the ODIs in Sydney Darren Mattison and Adrian Tham, and the T20I there Tham and Toni Lorraine. The ODI in Melbourne has Georgie Dwyer, Wendy Moore and Chris Skyring scoring and in Hobart Nathan Bester and Steve Jewell, while the T20Is in Canberra have Pina Kidd and Rammanee Shivakumar, and Adelaide Mike Harper, Neil Ricketts and Ian Graham.

My women’s cricket predictions

Sonia Twigg

Breakthrough player: Seren Smale

Already on the fringes of the England squads, Seren Smale could be poised for a breakthrough year as England look to strengthen their squad depth. She was called up to the international squad for the first time for effectively a second-team tour of Ireland aged 19, and later as cover for the South Africa series. As one of the emerging players from the 2023 Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup, she was the third-highest run scorer of the 2024 Rachael Heyhoe Flint trophy and could push on in 2025.

Most important player: Nat Sciver-Brunt

For the past few years, England have turned to their senior players to deliver on the biggest stages and there is none more suited to the occasion than Nat Sciver-Brunt. With England taking on Australia in the Ashes and then travelling to India for the Women’s World Cup, Sciver-Brunt will be crucial for England’s chances in both of those, especially with the bat. Already among the highest-paid sportswomen in the country, Sciver-Brunt is one of the biggest stars of the growing global women’s game.

Women’s Ashes winner: Australia

England defied the odds in 2023 when they came back from losing the Test match to beat Australia in the white-ball series and draw the Ashes overall, but doing it down under will be a different story. Both sides have suffered setbacks in the preceding months, crashing out early of the Women’s T20 World Cup in Dubai. But with the prospect of the first day-night Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to cap off the tour, Australia will want to hold onto the urn they have held for the last decade, and with their squad depth they are best positioned to do so.

Women’s World Cup winner: Australia

You have to go back as far as 2000 to find a winner of a women’s World Cup not from either England or Australia, and it will be hard to look past the Australians again in 2025. Their all-conquering domination of the 50-over format was brought to an end by England in 2023. Prior to that Australia had not lost a bilateral one-day international series since 2013, but they will still go into the tournament as favourites. Hosts India will benefit from the home support, but will have to show that they have learnt from their collapse in 2017 which saw England win the title.

No debuts for Aussie female umpires during women’s Ashes, suggest reports. 

PTG Editor.
Tuesday, 31 December 2024.
PTG 4721-22662

A collation of reports received from around the country indicates to the surprise of no one, that Claire Polosak and Eloise Sheridan, by far Cricket Australia’s (CA) most experienced female umpires will, in addition to Kent Hannam as the match referee, feature in all seven matches in the coming women’s Ashes series: three One Day Internationals (ODI), three Twenty20 Internationals (T20I), and a single Test. Apart from Polosak and Sheridan, the only other female who is believed to have been assigned to those games is Lisa McCabe, but her role will be limited to fourth umpire spots in two of the ODIs and the Test, she having served in the latter role for the first time last February (PTG 4402-21395, 12 January 2024).

Polosak and Sheridan will both be on-field twice and the TV umpire once in both the ODI and T20I legs of the tour, and on-field together in what will be for each their third women’s Test; their last being together in Perth last February when McCabe was the fourth umpire.  Instead of pushing McCabe or other female umpires around Australia into TV or fourth umpire roles during the white ball part of the series is which no International Cricket Council neutral umpire will be working (PTG 4719-22654, 29 December 2024), CA is understood to have assigned the likes of male Contracted Umpire Panel members Shawn Craig, Roberto Howard, Sharad Patel and Ben Treloar to those matches.

CA is reported to have appointed McCabe as third umpire for the match between an Australian Governor General XI and England which will be played in Canberra prior to the white ball series proper getting underway.  For that fixture, CA has brought in Mary Waldron from South Australia and Claire Haysom of Victoria as the on-field umpires while Hannam will be the referee. 

11/12

PCA Business Futures  - read on Pravda

A free business grade laptop for 73 year old James Graham-Brown as one of the runners-up. Business Futures eh!

Can Marie diversify and produce a cap that will stay on Haseeb Hameed's head?

03/12

Pravda alliterates Craig Cumming new head coach of the Blaze

THE BLAZE'S FAILURE TO COMMIT

Pravda, Mr Newell, Mr Hunt and Ms Pursehouse all feel as supporters of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club that we should all also support The Blaze and if we don't then we are some kind of misogynistic dinosaur.

As part of the Women's cricket restructuring and the demise of the regional structure in favour the tiered county structure that we now have from 2025, Nottinghamshire was granted Tier 1 status. All the regional franchises, except one, have been dissolved and have taken on new County identities of sorts, with that exception being The Blaze. The Blaze are based at Trent Bridge, except when they are not, as it suits Trent Bridge and Nottinghamshire not to commit fully to hosting Tier 1 women's matches for every home fixture. So The Blaze remains an East Midland regional representative franchise, playing within a new County structure. Leicestershire and Derbyshire both have their own Tier 2 women's county teams but will also host The Blaze home fixtures, sometimes as part of a double header day, as The Blaze also do with the Outlaws at Trent Bridge.  So The Blaze are not Nottinghamshire as they are as much Derbyshire and Leicestershire as well, so why should any Nottingham, Derby or Leicester based supporter show them any allegiance?  This is the parochial East Midlands, where rivalries are old and are important.

Pravda's website has fixtures for both The Blaze and for Nottinghamshire Women, the latter having a handful of home fixtures over the season at grounds other than Trent Bridge but within the county borders.

Do The Blaze have to play all of their one day schedule at first class venues?

Trent Bridge admits that it is unable to commit to The Blaze fully because of the limited number of wickets on the square at HQ, but can't wickets be found at other grounds around the county to host The Blaze? Why can't The Blaze fully commit to Nottinghamshire and adopt the Nottinghamshire name, it might be the start of giving potential supporters something to identify with?

Fans of Welbeck need to heed the words of Mr Newell, where Welbeck CC have their own list of priorities for their ground and County cricket comes below hosting wedding receptions in that list, sadly. Other clubs will have their own priorities too.

Clearly what Nottinghamshire Cricket needs is a real alternative first class venue to Trent Bridge that lies within the county, much as Lancashire now have with the Farington ground, which I believe they took possession of last week. Perhaps it would have been cheaper to develop an alternative venue than it will be to double up facilities in a new Trent Bridge pavilion, if and when that project gets off the ground. Three months lost / behind schedule already Mr Hunt!

21/11

52 Double Headers

Will Outlaws be playing in Wolverhampton Wanderers' colours in the future?

When is home, home?

When is double header not a double header?

When is 4, 6?

Yes I do know what Pravda means but the graphic is being used to sell memberships at Trent Bridge and highlight the connection (that may exist) between Nottinghamshire CCC and (location denied) The Blaze franchise, if it is a franchise to be bought and sold and farmed-out to any place that will have 'em.

How is the Trent Bridge pavilion project progressing BTW?

20/11

Kent Unhappy

19/11

Tier 1 sides taking part in the Women's County Vitality Blast T20 include Birmingham Bears, Lancashire Thunder and The Blaze.

Is it time to admit that the The Blaze rebrand was a tad premature and should now be redundant. The Tier 1 and for that matter Tiers 2 and 3 sides are all being hailed as COUNTY sides now by the ECB media machine.

Is it that the The Blaze are finding it difficult to adopt Nottinghamshire as a home or is the reverse true in spite of all the hot air blustered by the club's CEO?