Wiltshire Cricket 2020 Onwards - Talent Pathway and Representative Cricket Update
Future Identity of Wiltshire Cricket Representative Teams
Some of you will be more aware than others, but Wiltshire Cricket is currently undergoing an extensive piece of work to develop a strategy for 2020-2024 that will both align to ECB’s Inspiring Generations strategy but that will also provide a local direction for the county over the next five years. This strategy is also a requirement for us to qualify for the funding that we will be receiving from ECB over the 2020-2024 strategic period (read more information on our strategy work).
One of the requirements of our strategy is for us to demonstrate true collaboration across all of the different cricket authorities and organisations that exist across the county. With this in mind, both Wiltshire Cricket Limited (the Board) and Wiltshire County Cricket Club, as the two largest organisations in the county, are at the advanced stages of discussions regarding forming one overarching Wiltshire Cricket organisation, which will then have two operational strands as follows:
- Cricket in the Community Department
- Wiltshire CCC Talent Pathway Department
The second department above will carry the identity of Wiltshire County Cricket Club but with all representative cricket coming under its banner. The purpose of this is to align the whole player pathway from under 10s right the way through to the county 1st XI. We want young cricketers coming in to the player pathway at any stage to see a clear and visible link through to the pinnacle of cricket in Wiltshire. We also believe that the alignment of the whole pathway will be the beginning of creating consistent principles for players and coaches across all stages of our player pathway, and aiding the development of these will be a newly recruited Head of Pathway who will head up the Wiltshire CCC talent pathway department (see more on this role below).
The move towards representative cricket being played under the identity of Wiltshire CCC will not impact greatly on district and county age group cricket in terms of the programmes we currently deliver. However, from an outward looking perspective there are two things that I would like to bring to your attention:
- County Logo – As a demonstration of representative cricket moving to the identity of Wiltshire CCC we will be undergoing a gradual transition towards the use of the attached logo on all representative clothing. The reason this will be gradual is that we will not expect all players to buy new clothing immediately but instead the logo will change on our webshop and all items purchased after this change will carry the Wiltshire CCC logo
- New County Website – In line with the launch of a new operational structure, we are also building a new website for Wiltshire Cricket which is due to go live shortly. Our current website is about nine years old and in need of a refresh. The new website will have two entry points; Cricket in the Community and Wiltshire CCC. All information relating to county and district age group cricket will appear within the Wiltshire CCC section of the site.
Head of Talent Pathway
I mentioned above that we will be recruiting a Head of Talent Pathway to head up the operations of the Wiltshire CCC strand of our organisation. This role has become a reality thanks to a number of factors, one such factor being that we have recently gone through an extensive tender process with ECB to be awarded funding to deliver an enhanced Emerging Player Programme (EPP) from October 2020 onwards.
The EPP is an elite coaching programme for 13-18 year olds and has historically been delivered in Wiltshire using our core funding. Going forwards, we will have specific additional funding attributed to the EPP, which will firstly mean the programme can be enhanced but secondly is conditional on us appointing a Head of Pathway for the county.
The Head of Pathway will have a responsibility spanning the management of the Wiltshire 1st and 2nd XI teams, delivery on the Emerging Player Programme and management of the whole age group player pathway for both girls and boys. This is an exciting role and will help to bring together the whole pathway, with part of their initial remit being to develop consistent principles, values and characteristics that our players and coaches work to across all stages of the pathway.
If there are any questions relating to anything in the above update please don’t hesitate to contact Pete Sykes:
