England Cricket Board set to train 2000 South Asian female cricket coaches

What's the story?

Sport England, a non-departmental public body that comes under the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has promised the England Cricket Board (ECB) a massive amount of funding, which will now be used for the training and development of close to 2000 female cricket coaches in South Asia, according to a latest announcement.

In case you didn't know...

Sport England have been hugely responsible for the nurturing of a widespread sporting culture in all of England and elsewhere, since their inception in the late 1990s.

And now, the same organisation will provide a sum of £1.2 million (USD 1.54 million) to facilitate the training of 2000 volunteer South Asian female coaches. This is perhaps the first time that such huge financial help has been made from the part of Sport England, and hopefully, it would pave way for more such incidents in future.

The heart of the matter

The South Asian Action Plan of the England Cricket Board, launched in May 2018 with an aim to transform the way cricket engages with British South Asian communities, had eleven key attributes out of which the purpose of expanding the female coaching network was one amongst.

The programme will ideally combine the teaching of both mentorship skills as well as the adequate techniques for a thorough grasp of the game, and provided all goes well, should ideally help a great deal in forging the next generation of good cricketers.

Former England cricketer Isa Guha (first from left) is one of the main people behind the new venture

They will also support the delivery of All-Stars Cricket, the ECB's entry-level-cricket programme for five-eight-year-olds, in seven cities - namely Birmingham, Bradford, London, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester and Nottingham - and act as role models, showing young people the positive part that cricket can play in their lives.

Former England Women's cricketer and Sky Sports presenter Isa Guha said: "Coming up through the ranks of cricket as a woman of South Asian heritage, I'm acutely aware of the importance of attracting young girls from a diverse range of backgrounds to play our great game."

"We need to invest in attracting women into coaching and facilitator roles to help train and nurture the next generation of stars. This funding from Sport England will go a long way towards helping us achieve this goal," she added while speaking to Sky Sports.

What's next?

Kudos to the ECB for upholding the Spirit of Cricket and helping the game grow out to further expanses across the globe. Hopefully, they will be successful in their project, upon which the game of cricket would also be taking another step in the right direction, in trying to develop into one of the worldwide sports.