The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) yesterday announced that the Lancashire Cricket Board (LCB), with partners Lancashire County Cricket Club and Lancashire County Cricket Club Foundation, is one of the six hosts that will compete in the inaugural Women’s Cricket Super League this summer.
The six Women’s Cricket Super League hosts in full are:
- Hampshire Cricket with partners: Berkshire Cricket Ltd, Dorset Cricket Board, Isle of Wight Cricket Board, Oxfordshire Cricket, Southampton Solent University, Sussex Cricket Ltd, Wiltshire Cricket Ltd
- Lancashire Cricket Board with partners: Lancashire County Cricket Club, Lancashire County Cricket Club Foundation
- Loughborough University
- South West: Somerset County Cricket Club, Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, University of Exeter
- Surrey County Cricket Club
- Yorkshire County Cricket Club
The announcement follows a rigorous bidding process over the last six months, which saw 28 different organisations express an interest in becoming a Women’s Cricket Super League host. The award process culminated today, when the ECB Board approved the six selected hosts.
The Lancashire Cricket Board will now work with a network of surrounding partners, including Lancashire County Cricket Club and Lancashire County Cricket Club Foundation to form a single Women’s Cricket Super League entity.
The Women’s Cricket Super League will start this summer with the LCB team competing in a Twenty20 (T20) event against the other five teams. Thereafter the competition will include both T20 and 50-over formats. All six teams have been awarded hosting rights for a four year period from 2016-2019 inclusive.
Further details on the format and timing of the Women’s Cricket Super League, along with a confirmed team name and identity for the LCB team, will be announced in due course.
Lancashire Cricket Board’s Managing Director, Bobby Denning said: “We are delighted with this news, which will clearly move the women’s and girls’ game to another level.
“This is a great boost for the game locally and demonstrates our commitment to developing the game previously and now into the future. Our focus is now on delivering everything we have set out to achieve in our bid.
“We look forward to establishing relationships with the other successful bidders and congratulate them on their success.”
The key aims of the Women’s Cricket Super League include the development of ever higher standards for the England women’s team with greater competition for places, alongside inspiring more women and girls to play cricket at all levels. It will offer new opportunities, a new narrative for the game and new role models, as well as a network of host clubs linked to their communities.”
Lancashire Cricket Board’s Women Cricket Super League General Manager, Bobby Cross added: “I am delighted at this announcement and it reflects a significant amount of hard work that has gone into both the bid and into the women and girls game in the region.
“As a host team we will now look forward to the hard work really beginning and to playing our part in making WCSL a major success.”
ECB Director of England Women’s Cricket, Clare Connor, said: “Lancashire Cricket Board, with their partners, will be one of our six Women’s Cricket Super League hosts for the next four years. It is great to have a county with such a rich cricketing history as Lancashire involved with this pioneering project for the women’s game.
“Overall, the award process to identify the six hosts was competitive from the outset, and the interview panel was very impressed by the ambition displayed by all of the bids received.
“Our vision for the competition is to create an exciting, dynamic and high quality domestic women’s game in England, where the world’s best players come together to drive performance standards and inspire women and girls to love cricket. Lancashire Cricket Board, and all five of the other hosts, have passionately demonstrated that they share this aspiration and we are now really excited to work with them to deliver this next stage in the evolution of women’s cricket in this country.”
Report courtesy of Lancashire Cricket Board
