Recreational Cricket Update - Indoor Activity

Firstly, all at Wiltshire Cricket hope this email finds you and your clubs well. We are nearing the end of the 2020 outdoor playing season; a season we will never forget but one from which the collective Cricket community can take a great deal of pride over. Back in the Spring we faced the realistic prospect of losing a whole season of recreational Cricket. Instead though the Sport has managed to mobilise itself to provide 2 ½ months of Cricket including opportunities for players of all different ages, levels and abilities to play. Our thanks to you and everyone from within your clubs who have helped to make the best of this extremely challenging season.

As we look ahead to winter focus will now clearly shift towards indoor activity, and so this message aims to provide a few important bits of information as well as some holding messages on the back of the Government announcements yesterday…

ECB Guidance for Cricket Indoors:

Last Friday, 18th September, the ECB issued their guidance for Cricket indoors. These were issued following sign off from DCMS.

Attached below you will find:

The purpose of these guidelines is to offer practical guidance to venues, coaching providers and clubs on the steps they should take while undertaking cricket indoors. They should be read in conjunction with latest UK and Welsh Government regulations. These guidelines could change in response to the current COVID-19 Alert Level or other Government advice (see below)

In order to keep cricket going as it moves indoors, there will need to be adaptations in place for all, including venues, coaching providers, players, parents/carers, spectators and officials. Those adaptations relate to activity prior to, during and after cricket activity. There are also adaptations from the Step 4 outdoor guidance.

Latest Government Announcements:

Yesterday, 22nd September, Boris Johnson announced a number of new measures and restrictions to help fight COVID-19 during the upcoming winter months. Included within these announcements was confirmation that Indoor Adult team sport would need to adhere to the rule of six. This announcement clearly creates a lot of uncertainty around what Cricket activity will be able to take place this winter. On the back of these Government announcements, Nick Pryde (ECB Director of Participation and Growth) issued the following update for Cricket Boards yesterday evening:

I am sure you will have seen the Prime Ministers announcements today relating to new COVID-19 restrictions. As we have done throughout this pandemic, we will be working in close partnership with both the Welsh and UK Governments to understand the impact and detail of these announcements. Given many of these announcements are proposed to be in place for much of the winter period, this has the potential to impact many parts of the recreational game. We will endeavour to provide an update shortly, particularly in relation to indoor cricket once we have more information.

So, what this means is that we will now need to wait for the detailed guidance to be issued by Government to National Governing Bodies with regards what the new measures mean for adult indoor team Sport. This may mean a revision to some of detail contained within the ECB’s Guidance for Cricket Indoors that was issued last week.

At this stage, we feel it is important for us not to pre-judge what the changes will mean for recreational cricket this winter. Instead, we must wait for the detail to be produced and this will then help to guide us through this winter in terms of what we can and cannot do and deliver.

As always, Wiltshire Cricket will keep the club network informed as and when we receive any further news or updates.