Hampshire and Southern Vipers Champion Women’ s Cricket
Hampshire ACO, Kia Super League franchise the Southern Vipers and the Hampshire Cricket Board have linked up to train young women and girls as officials.
During the winter, 51 candidates completed the introductory scoring course and 30 finished the introductory umpiring course. Nineteen candidates went on to do a full Stage One course.
The girls were rewarded for their efforts with Vipers T-shirts and ECB ACO polo shirts at a special evening at The Ageas Bowl. The shirts were presented by Suzie Bates, the New Zealand and Vipers captain, who took time to congratulate the candidates and answer their questions.
Recently, nine of the girls had the opportunity to officiate at an inter-district festival. Hampshire ACO mentors were on-hand to provide feedback.
The improvement shown in the candidates’ second matches as their confidence and self-belief grew was amazing. Five others were unfortunately denied their opportunities on the second day due to the inclement weather.
There are two more festivals planned in July to provide the chance for the remaining 10 girls to dip their toes in the officiating water. Let’ s hope the weather does not stop them!
The whole experience has shown the strength of collaboration between the Southern Vipers, the Hampshire ACO team and the Hampshire Cricket Board. A great example of synergy in action.
Hampshire’ s newest recruits.
One of the new Southern Viper Champions takes charge.
British Tamil Cricket League
The British Tamil Cricket League( BTCL) has been operating across the London region since 2006 and approached us with a concern over a shortage of umpires.
Nick Cousins and Vinoj Srinivasan ran a Stage One course at Wembley CC which was warmly attended by prospective umpires looking to learn new skills.
The league continues to grow and develop, and it is great that we can support them in doing so.
Members of the BTCL attend a Stage One course at Wembley CC.
Huge thanks to everyone who has taken the initiative to drive these projects and the many other ones around the country forward. It is so encouraging to see just how enthusiastic the participants are, from Cricketeens and Viper Champions to Tamil League umpires. We hope to pull together the learnings from all of the Innovation Fund projects and start to roll them out nationally next year!
email us at ecb. aco @ ecb. co. uk contact us on 0121 446 2710 19