The ECB Premier Leagues are a series of regional cricket leagues organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) that form the top tier of club cricket in England and Wales. The ECB published "Raising the Standard" in 1997, the ECB Management Board Blueprint for the Future Playing Structure of cricket. This introduced the concept of ECB Premier Leagues, designed to raise the playing standard of the top tier of club cricket and to bridge the gap between recreational cricket and the First Class game. A national network of Premier Leagues was established, with funding from the ECB. The Leagues have to meet the published ECB assessment criteria and they receive accreditation on an annual basis.
Premier Leagues are expected to establish links to other leagues in order to allow ambitious clubs to aspire to Premier League status over time. Many were based on existing leagues although some new Regional Premier Leagues were created. The ECB decided that overseas players are allowed to play in this top tier of club cricket provided that there is only one overseas player in any Premier League club team, which mirrors the arrangements for overseas players in the club cricket structures in countries such as Australia and South Africa.
The Premier League clubs must show a strong commitment to junior cricket and the assessment criteria explicitly require strong junior sections that can provide cricket coaching and matches for the next generation of cricketers. There is also an increased emphasis on practice and the development of skills for the adult players in Premier League clubs.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the national governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was formed on 1 January 1997 as a single governing body to combine the roles formerly fulfilled by the Test and County Cricket Board, the National Cricket Association and the Cricket Council. In April 1998 the Women's Cricket Association was integrated into the organisation. The ECB's head offices are at Lord's Cricket Ground in north-west London.
The T20 Blast, currently named the Vitality Blast for sponsorship reasons, is a professional Twenty20 cricket competition for English and Welsh first-class counties. The competition was established by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003. It is the top-level Twenty20 competition in England and Wales.
The Rugby League Conference (RLC), was a series of regionally based divisions of amateur rugby league teams spread throughout England, Scotland, and Wales.
Inter-county cricket matches have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales. Since the late 19th century, there have been two county championship competitions played at different levels: the County Championship, a first-class competition which involves eighteen first-class county clubs among which seventeen are English and one is from Wales; and the National Counties Championship, which involves nineteen English county clubs and one club that represents several Welsh counties.
Cricketers from Wales are currently represented by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and compete for the England cricket team. There have been some historical instances of a separate Welsh team in the 1920–30s, in the 1979 ICC Trophy, and in the British Isles Championship between 1993 and 2001, however Wales is not a separate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
The Bradford Premier League is a semi-professional cricket competition centred in Bradford, West Yorkshire. It has been described as "arguably England's strongest semi-professional competition."
The ECB National Club Cricket Championship is a forty over limited overs knockout club cricket competition in England. The most successful clubs have been Scarborough, from North Yorkshire, with five titles and Old Hill, from Staffordshire, with four.
Cricket is one of the most popular sports in England, and has been played since the 16th century. Marylebone Cricket Club, based at Lord's, developed the modern rules of play and conduct. The sport is administered by the England and Wales Cricket Board and represented at an international level by the England men's team and England women's team. At a domestic level, teams are organised by county, competing in tournaments such as the County Championship, Royal London One-Day Cup, T20 Blast and the Women's Twenty20 Cup. Recent developments include the introduction of a regional structure for women's cricket and the establishment of The Hundred for both men's and women's cricket. Recreational matches are organised on a regional basis, with the top level being the ECB Premier Leagues.
The West of England Premier League (WEPL) is the top level of competition for recreational club cricket in the West of England and is a designated ECB Premier League.
The Association of Cricket Officials (ACO) is an organisation set up to represent and support cricket officials, especially umpires and scorers. It operates under the auspices of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and is often referred to as the "ECB ACO" or similar. Current membership is "near 8,000".
Lewis Gregory is an English cricketer who plays for Somerset County Cricket Club. A right-handed batsman and right-arm seam bowler, Gregory made his senior cricket debut in 2010, representing Somerset against the touring Pakistanis. He made his international debut for the England cricket team in November 2019.
Scarborough Cricket Club is an English amateur cricket club, based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. The club was founded in 1849, and is a member of the Yorkshire Premier League North.
Philip Dean Salt is a Welsh professional cricketer who plays internationally for England and domestically for Lancashire County Cricket Club, and previously for Sussex. Primarily an aggressive right-handed opening batter, he sometimes keeps wicket and, less frequently, bowls right-arm off spin. Salt made his international debut for England in July 2021. Born in Wales, he moved in his youth to Barbados and then to England. Salt was part of the England team that won the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup. He made history after scoring two consecutive centuries in T20Is against West Indies.
The Women's Cricket Super League (WCSL), known as the Kia Super League (KSL) for sponsorship reasons, was a semi-professional women's Twenty20 cricket competition in England and Wales operated by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). The competition featured six franchise teams, partnered with a variety of county teams and boards and universities, and was envisaged as a means to bridge the gap between amateur domestic cricket and the increasingly professional international game.
Richard Martin Cox is an English cricketer who has also worked as a coach and administrator. He played Minor Counties cricket for Herefordshire, and has served in various administrative roles, most notably as CEO of the Royal Dutch Cricket Board between 2009 and 2015.
Yorkshire Diamonds were an English women's Twenty20 cricket team based in Leeds, Yorkshire. They were formed in 2016 to compete in the inaugural season of the Women's Cricket Super League. They played their home matches at grounds across Yorkshire, including Headingley Cricket Ground and Clifton Park, York, and were partnered with Yorkshire County Cricket Club. They were coached by Danielle Hazell and captained by Lauren Winfield. In 2020, following reforms to the structure of women's domestic cricket, some elements of the Yorkshire Diamonds were retained for a new team, the Northern Diamonds.
The Hundred is a 100-ball cricket tournament involving teams in major cities across England and Wales run by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) which took place for the first time in 2021.
100-ball cricket is a short form of cricket designed to attract new audiences to the game with simplified rules, which was originally created by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for its new city-based competition The Hundred.
Slough Cricket Club is a cricket club based in Berkshire, in southern England. Slough Cricket Club has been at the forefront of cricket in the Thames Valley since it moved to Chalvey Road in 1899. It joined the Thames Valley League on its inception in 1972 and has remained in the top division ever since. Their first team play in Division Two of the Home Counties Premier Cricket League, with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th elevens playing in divisions 1,3,5,7 and 9 respectively in the Thames Valley Cricket League, a Sunday eleven team who participate in the South East Shires Cricket League, and a Junior Section, who play in the Berkshire Youth Cricket League.
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