Players ‘exhausted’ by ‘relentless’ cricket calendar – ECB chairman Richard Thompson

Last month the government pledged £1.5m for two new indoor sport domes in Luton and Lancashire. Thompson says the ECB wants to build 40 of the facilities to improve opportunities in towns and cities for state-school children to play all year round, and make the sport more inclusive.

When asked if the £520m generated by the sale of stakes in the eight Hundred franchises to private investors would help, Thompson said: “The Hundred windfall is as much to wipe out the debt of the game… £50m will be going to grassroots.”

Cindy Butts, the chair of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC), whose landmark 2023 report concluded that the English game was elitist, racist and sexist, has said the ECB made a “mistake” in not committing to making participation in the county talent pathway free of charge.

But Thompson said: “I think in terms of where we’re investing, this is a far better use of our money… the pathway is significantly subsidised wherever we can do that.

“But this is really the game-changing moment for the game. I believe that cricket is going into a golden era, and for it to be that, you need somewhere for kids to come and play. The [T20] Women’s World Cup next year is going to activate a lot of interest. That’s why it’s so important we can soak that interest up.”

When asked whether enough had been done to make the English game more inclusive since the 2023 ICEC report, Thompson said: “We’ve made a huge amount of progress in the last two years to get there, but we’ve still got a long way to go. Inclusivity is a very broad term, it’s not just race… anybody that wants to play cricket can and should be able to play cricket, and that’s the ambition.

“These centres, these domes, are a way of demonstrating that we’re trying to reach communities we’ve never reached before.”