The Teesra

Category: ICEC

  • The ECB wants to build 40 new domes — but will this be enough?

    A couple of weeks ago, Richard Thompson, chairman of the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), was interviewed by Dan Roan of the BBC at the opening of the country’s second all-weather cricket “dome” in Darwen, Lancashire.

    With the (understandable) focus at the time on playing schedules in the County game and player workloads, the main story from the interview was how players were “exhausted” by an “unrelenting” schedule.

    And, with no resolution of the problematic 4-day schedule for 2026, the schedule will only become more compressed as the Hundred claims more of the summer.

    But Thompson’s comments on the new dome, and on progress towards the goals set out by the ICEC report, got little further coverage. Which seemed slightly strange, to me.

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  • Early Engagement…seriously?

    I wrote recently about the ECB’s apparent “re-interpretation” of a couple of recommendations from the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) report, Holding Up a Mirror to Cricket, 2023.

    Although the “…workstream of developing early engagement programmes for November 2025 is…[still] underway…” (unpublished as of February 2025, although the Counties might, perhaps, have had sight of it), several Counties have started the recruitment process to support the Early Engagement Programmes (EEPs) called for by the ICEC Report.

    Without knowing the final agreed format of the EEP, it does appear that the future County pathways that the Counties are preparing for might not be all that close to the ICEC proposals.

    And that the Counties are not preparing for ICEC Recommendation 35, which calls for much enhanced State School engagement.

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  • Myths of Sports Coaching, cricket edition

    Back in December 2024, ECB Coaches Association (ECB CA) members were invited to attend a webinar entitled “Talking talent and inclusion” featuring the ECB’s recently appointed Pathway Inclusion Officers (PIOs).

    The drive to make the pathway more inclusive is a hugely important project, for the ECB and for the game itself. But I had heard a (far from positive) review of a PIO presentation to a group of CAG coaches earlier in 2024, and was very interested to find out what was being said.

    I missed the original webinar, unfortunately (Wednesday has been a regular work night for me, right through the off-season), and the recording has yet to be posted to the ECB CA website, but what I assume must be a transcript † of the webinar has recently been posted for ECB Coaches Association members. For such an important initiative, the published article contains several contentious, un-evidenced, claims, which apparently went unchallenged on the night.

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