Yorkshire must wait till 2027 to participate within the England and Wales
Cricket Board’s new ‘Tier 1’ revamp of the ladies’s skilled sport, after
eight different counties had been chosen to paved the way.
Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey and Warwickshire have been chosen as hosts, with the governing physique abolishing the prevailing regional construction in favour of alignment with the first-class counties.
The blow to Yorkshire, for whom it is a additional setback after a number of turbulent years on and off the sector, has been mitigated by a promise to deliver them into an expanded competitors within the third season.
Glamorgan have been given the identical assurances and each will obtain further funding to assist construct their pathway.
However there might be no ‘Tier 1’ cricket at Lord’s within the foreseeable future, with MCC declining to place itself ahead and Middlesex amongst these missed. Sussex have additionally been left on the surface trying in, regardless of an extended and powerful
dedication to the ladies’s sport
The ECB has additionally mentioned it needs to increase Tier 1 to 12 groups by 2029 however no choice has been made but as to the place these additional two groups could be based mostly.
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First-class counties that weren’t awarded Tier 1 standing and nationwide counties might be invited to be a part of the method to find out groups for Tier 2 and three of the brand new home construction. These groups might be introduced in September forward of launch in 2025.
In the course of the 2025-2028 seasons all three tiers might be ‘closed’, with no promotion or relegation.
The plans may see an 80 per cent improve within the variety of skilled feminine gamers by 2029 and the ECB is committing an extra £3m a 12 months from when Glamorgan and Yorkshire are operational.
It would imply a complete of £8m new funding per 12 months is invested into girls’s home cricket by 2027 – taking annual funding on this space to £19m.
Richard Gould, ECB chief govt officer, mentioned: “By this course of we have seen an enormous urge for food from top quality counties to have a girls’s skilled group, and an actual dedication to rising girls’s and ladies’ cricket on this nation.
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“I would wish to congratulate these counties who’ve been profitable of their bids. I am additionally delighted that in gentle of the help now we have seen and the power of the bids now we have thought-about, we are able to speed up our plans, together with new high tier skilled groups at Glamorgan and Yorkshire by 2027 with and an extra two being launched by 2029.
“Extra skilled groups means extra girls capable of make a profession out of being a cricketer, extra position fashions to encourage future generations, and extra of the nation having a girls’s skilled group to observe close by.
“I recognise right this moment’s announcement will even be disappointing to those that have not been profitable at this stage. 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 are able to all realise the potential of girls’s home cricket.”
ECB director of girls’s skilled sport Beth Barrett-Wild mentioned: “It is clear that the sport is united in eager to take the ladies’s skilled sport ahead, and in wanting to supply commercially vibrant groups and competitions that excite followers and showcase the standard of our skilled gamers.
“I am energised about what comes subsequent, for the counties themselves, for the gamers, for followers and for everybody who needs to see girls’s cricket proceed its accelerated trajectory.”
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