The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the governing body for cricket in England and Wales, has, over the past month been running a series of regional consultation workshops to help improve its understanding and levels of engagement with South Asian cricket fans across the country.
The ECB wants to ensure that cricket is a game for everyone; full of great experiences whether people play, watch, follow, or work in the game. To help with this, the ECB was keen to hear feedback, ideas and thoughts on how cricket can do this for South Asian communities.
The workshops took place in seven regional venues in Birmingham, Bradford, Dewsbury, East London, Leicester, Manchester and South London, and were designed to encourage local communities to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences on playing, attending or following the game.
Attended by members of the Afghani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Nepalese, Pakistani, or Sri Lankan communities, the workshops were a resounding success, with over 500 cricket fans from all walks of life taking part and sharing their views with the ECB. The feedback from the workshops has been more than encouraging:
“…really interesting workshop, with many important and valid points raised and shared.”
“It was a very interesting and informative session of two hours where many valid points were made and very useful suggestions were put forward in promoting and developing cricket within the South East Asian communities living in the United Kingdom.”
“It was an eye opener with some of the figures. As a lay member and with an ardent task of coaching my 11 year who loves cricket, we thoroughly enjoyed it.”
“… it was a brilliantly organised and well-structured workshop. I feel the concerns issues and worries will certainly reduce gradually.”
Vikram Banerjee, Head of Strategy at the ECB said of the response and initial learnings from the workshops:
“We have been blown away by the interest and the passion shown by South Asian cricket fans throughout this process. Every session has seen large numbers of people attend and there have been some fascinating discussions and talking points.
“We will use everything we have learnt from these consultations to help continue to ensure that cricket is a game for all and make the sport better for everyone.”
