Kent Cricket’s Board reinforces welcome of ICEC Report

Board members of Kent Cricket reinforced their welcome of the publication of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) report at its recent Board meeting at The County Ground, Beckenham.

The report, which makes for difficult reading, is important for the advancement of equity, diversity, and inclusion within the sport we all love, and the Board sees its publication as an important step in addressing the issues that have been raised.

The ICEC report presents a pivotal moment for the game, and it is important that together as a sport, we acknowledge past failings and continue to work together to ensure that cricket is a game for everyone. We must ensure that discrimination of any kind is eradicated.

As part of our ongoing commitment to becoming more inclusive and welcoming, we continue to encourage anyone who experiences or witnesses discrimination, to report it to Kent Cricket via email at equality@kentcricket.co.uk or directly to the ECB via their website here. This process is, and will remain, completely confidential.

The Club participated fully with the ICEC report and thanks those who have shown courage in sharing their lived experiences to help pave the way for a more inclusive sport.

As custodians of the game, it is our responsibility to look forward and work to continue to open up cricket to everyone.

Over the past two years, we have developed our Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) policy and action plan with the support of our EDI Advisor, Susan Rooney. The Board-approved plan, which cascades out of the ECB game wide plan, is overseen by the EDI Steering Group which is chaired by Non-Executive Director, Laura Tough.

The key pillars for our EDI action plan are:

• Increasing the understanding & education of equity, diversity & inclusion (EDI) across all levels of cricket.
• Reviewing dressing room culture in professional teams (domestic & international).
• Removing barriers in talent pathways to aid the progress of people from diverse backgrounds into professional teams.
• Creating a welcoming environment for all, including tackling abusive crowd behaviour & upgraded education across the whole game.

In 2022, the Club collaborated with Essex, Middlesex and Surrey County Cricket Clubs on a venture designed to make physical activity more accessible in the nation’s Capital through the game of cricket. The project, titled ‘Cricket4London’, uses the combined resources and expertise of the four professional London Cricket Clubs to combat the limited availability of physical activity and sport in London’s most deprived areas, especially amongst children and young people.

The County Ground, Beckenham, our satellite first-class venue in South East London is ideally placed to play an important role in the Cricket4London project as well as providing a bridgehead for Kent Cricket into our four London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, Bexley and Bromley.

In 2023, Kent Cricket introduced its Pathway Bursary, to help minimize cost as a barrier to young people playing the game. We eliminated the dress code for events at The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence in Canterbury to show that while we are very proud of Kent’s significant cricket history, we recognise the need to change with the times.

Kent Cricket was one of the first counties to sign the Muslim Athlete Charter, and our Kent Cricket Community Trust ran a session on Inclusive Culture for the Afghan Community to further our understanding of cultural differences and ensure these communities feel welcome and included in our county.

In June, the Club supported LGBTQ+ inclusion at a local level using the Club’s flagship annual cricket festival as a catalyst event to demonstrate that cricket is a game for everyone.

This year has also seen Kent Cricket team up with Cohesion Plus and the ECB to celebrate the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi as well as Eid al-Fitr in Gravesend. We now have a targeted plan to increase participation in cricket in this area of Kent as well as increasing the diversity of community coaches from this area.

We continue to support women and girls’ cricket in Kent, launching the Kent Women Premier League for recreational clubs and continuing to expand the number of clubs that offer women and girls’ cricket.

We remain proud of the work to date from our network of staff and volunteers who already work hard to deliver a range of initiatives in communities across Kent but in reading the report, we acknowledge that we need to reassess our progress to date and go further and faster in our efforts to grow the game and make it accessible to everyone.

ECB is now leading a detailed and considered response to the ICEC Report and each of its recommendations within the next three months. Kent Cricket is engaged fully with ECB in the game-wide discussion. The ECB response is due to be published within three months of the ICEC publication, in October 2023.

As a game, we will be held accountable for the actions that follow in the coming months and years. We are committed to working with the ECB and the wider game to truly make cricket a game for everyone.

• Click here to read the ICEC Report.
• Click here to the ECB statement in response to the report.
• Click here to read Kent Cricket’s 2022 – 2023 EDI Action Plan