Durham will signify the north, whereas Essex and Surrey will signify London and the south-east, in spite of everything three counties had been named among the many eight groups which can compete in a brand new top-level home girls’s competitors in England and Wales from subsequent yr.
They are going to be joined by Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset and Warwickshire with an extra two groups – Yorkshire and Glamorgan – to hitch by 2027, and two extra by 2029 underneath a revamped home construction confirmed by the ECB on Thursday.
Essentially the most notable county to have been omitted at this stage is Middlesex, who had been already embroiled in monetary points after being positioned underneath particular measures by the ECB final yr. Their MCC-backed bid for Tier 1 standing was rejected – which means that Lord’s is not going to be a possible dwelling venue for any of the groups – whereas Yorkshire and Glamorgan, because the growth groups, will obtain further funding from 2025 to run a “Tier 1 customary” expertise pathway.
Richard Gould, ECB CEO, stated: “By means of this course of we have seen an enormous urge for food from First Class Counties to have a girls’s skilled crew, and an actual dedication to rising girls’s and women’ cricket on this nation.
“Extra skilled groups means extra girls capable of make a profession out of being a cricketer, extra function fashions to encourage future generations, and extra of the nation having a girls’s skilled crew to comply with close by.”
In February, the ECB invited all 18 First Class Counties and MCC to enter the tender course of to develop into a girls’s Tier 1 membership. In a transfer away from the present regional construction, which started in 2020 with groups underneath central ECB management and largely encompassing multiple county, these new groups will likely be extra carefully related to the present counties and their males’s groups, which means that possession, accountability and governance will shift to these golf equipment.
Derbyshire and Worcestershire, together with MCC, had been the one ones who didn’t submit bids. These counties not awarded Tier 1 standing, together with the Nationwide Counties, will likely be invited to hitch a course of to find out the composition of Tier 2 and Tier 3, with promotion and relegation between these tiers deferred till after the 2028 season. The result of this course of is anticipated to be confirmed by September, forward of the launch of the brand new construction in full in 2025.
“I recognise at the moment’s announcement may even be disappointing to those that have not been profitable at this stage,” Gould stated. “However with the brand new three-tier construction we’re introducing, there may be nonetheless an enormous alternative for them to compete within the different tiers so collectively we will all realise the potential of girls’s home cricket.”
A panel comprising ECB board members, executives and unbiased members thought of the Tier 1 bids on 4 standards:
ECB Director of Girls’s Skilled Recreation Beth Barrett-Wild stated she had been “vastly impressed by the standard and ambition of the bids”.
“The choice to pick out two further Counties – Glamorgan and Yorkshire – because the ninth and tenth Tier 1 Golf equipment by 2027, and our acknowledged intention to maneuver to 12 groups in Tier 1 by 2029, is testomony to the energy of the bids and the tempo at which all of us wish to transfer to impact change,” she added. “It is clear that the sport is united in eager to take the ladies’s skilled recreation ahead, and in wanting to provide commercially vibrant groups and competitions that excite followers and showcase the standard of our skilled gamers.”
Middlesex’s monetary points culminated a discount in central funds to the membership, and a suspended factors deduction. The membership can be embroiled in a long-running authorized dispute with former chief govt Richard Goatley, and can play two T20 Blast dwelling video games at Essex’s Chelmsford floor to save cash on short-term infrastructure at outgrounds. Their bid was ignored in favour of Essex, whose collaboration with neighbouring cricket boards, together with Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk, gives a large catchment space throughout East Anglia.
Surrey’s bid was extensively anticipated to succeed however there was no room for Kent, with whom they share the South East Stars underneath the present construction. Sussex additionally missed out within the south and, like others who had been ignored, their finest hope now’s to hitch the highest flight when it expands to 12 groups by 2029.
Durham chief govt Tim Bostock stated: “This can be a monumental second within the historical past of Durham Cricket and girls’s sport within the area. The bidding course of was extraordinarily aggressive, however we had been assured the North East was the suitable place for one of many groups and that we had delivered a bid that demonstrated our potential and enthusiasm to deliver a crew right here.
“The monetary funding will likely be appreciable each on and off the pitch and is about to create over 30 new jobs and convey new industrial alternatives.”
The ECB estimates an 80% improve within the variety of skilled feminine gamers in England and Wales between now and 2029. To allow the growth from eight to 10 Tier 1 groups, the ECB is committing an extra £3 million a yr from when Glamorgan and Yorkshire are operational. It can imply a complete of £8 million new funding per yr is invested into girls’s home cricket by 2027 – taking annual funding on this space to about £19 million.
The most recent revamp of the home girls’s construction follows final yr’s report by the Impartial Fee for Fairness in Cricket, which concluded there was nonetheless a lot work to be finished to appropriate deep-seated discrimination throughout the recreation, significantly on the grounds of race, class and gender.
