Search Results for: I

Essex Cricket is delighted to announce a new three-year partnership with the South Asian Cricket Academy (SACA).

After launching in 2021, SACA aims to tackle the inequalities and specifically the lack of British South Asian (BSA) representation in professional cricket.  SACA was developed on the back of a PHD undertaken by Tom Brown in partnership with ECB, Warwickshire and Birmingham City University

Essex Cricket’s relationship with SACA started when we commissioned Tom Brown of SACA to support our pathways with actioning the findings from the PHD study

SACA originated from the research which was funded by Essex, Warwickshire and the ECB, with all parties keen to know more about the trends around the development of players from Diverse background and the date of birth impact on pathway players.

The new partnership will include the Leyton Hub becoming the latest location for SACA and link up with the flourishing East London Development Programme which oversees boys’ and girls’ cricket within the boroughs of East London, such as Newham, Redbridge, Havering, Barking & Dagenham and Waltham Forest.

With 55% of Essex Cricket’s Player Pathway coming from an ethnic background, along with a strong history of professional players coming from the East London region, the partnership will provide elite performance programmes for BSA cricketers in East London, who have the aspirations of following in the footsteps of Nasser Hussain, Ravi Bopara, Varun Chopra and most recently, Feroze Khushi and Robin Das.

In combination with the research, this programme will also be used to gather knowledge on how to provide a performance environment which accommodates for the specific needs of BSA female players, which will then be fed back into the county structure.

Several SACA players will link up with the Essex Development team over the course of the three years, whilst a T20 fixture between an Essex Cricket XI and a team that will include SACA XI players and will take place on May 15 at The Cloud County Ground, Chelmsford.

Essex’s Cricket Operations Director, Dan Feist commented: “We are proud to be partnering with SACA ahead of the upcoming season. They have achieved a huge amount over the last few years, and we are looking forward to helping them develop in the future for the greater good of cricket development in East London.

“Working with the next generation of cricketers and coaches in our local communities is important to Essex Cricket and the game, the opportunities SACA are creating for young cricketers will help grow the game and the talent in the region along supporting players on the pathway or just off the pathway.”

Essex fans can now purchase tickets for Vitality Blast, LV= Insurance County Championship and One Day Cup fixtures in 2023.

Need reminding of the fixtures? Click here…

The Eagles begin their Vitality Blast campaign with a summer half-term clash on Tuesday 30 May against Gloucestershire at The Cloud County Ground. Adult ticket prices for a Vitality Blast fixture start at £25 with junior tickets available from £10. The Early Bird period for Vitality Blast tickets ends on Wednesday 03 May, so be sure to purchase before ticket prices rise.

After proving popular during pre-sale, there is limited availability to see any of the Eagles’ three Friday night fixtures.

The One Day Cup returns this summer with the entirety of the competition being played in August and the school summer holidays. With tickets to see the Eagles put on the pale blue costing just £5 for juniors and strong opposition lined up in the form of Notts Outlaws, Middlesex, Yorkshire Vikings and Surrey, the One Day Cup offers something to cricket fans of all ages.

Essex will again be pushing for the Division One title in the LV= Insurance County Championship with Lancashire the first team to visit Chelmsford on Thursday 13 April. This year, as well as the blocks of fixtures at the start and end of the season, Essex will play three home Championship matches in June and July.

The First-Class offering at Chelmsford is even stronger this year with the ground hosting Ireland who will play against Essex in the lead-up to their one-off Test Match against England at Lord’s.

The game has recently been confirmed as having First-Class status and will be the first of two opportunities to see International outfits at Chelmsford in 2023, with England Women playing Sri Lanka in a Vitality Women’s IT20 in September.

Level up with Premium Hospitality

Purchasing hospitality at The Cloud County Ground has never been easier than with our new partner, Seat Unique.

Book anywhere, anytime from your preferred device in just 4 clicks! To browse our fantastic range of premium packages, visit www.essexcrickethospitality.seatunique.com

If you’d like to find out more about how you can get involved with Essex Cricket this year, download our Commercial Brochure.

Essex County Cricket Club is sorry to announce that Azeem Akhtar has decided not to continue as Chair of Essex.

When Azeem Akhtar was appointed as Chair in November 2022, he was the stand-out candidate from a very strong field. Prior to his appointment, as with the other appointments to the Board, the selection process included a thorough and independent review of Azeem’s social media activity by specialist consultants. After his appointment to the role of Chair and following reports in the media about Azeem’s historic social media activity, further due diligence was conducted.

The due diligence conducted by the specialist consultants concluded Azeem’s social media activity to be “supportive of the Islamic faith and beliefs as opposed to being antisemitic or indicating any other forms of racism”.

Azeem said: “These last few weeks have been very difficult for my family and me. This has taken a toll on us and I am determined to do justice to my other professional and personal commitments. I am passionately committed to fighting all kinds of discrimination whether that be anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or any other kind of prejudice. As concluded, my social media activity is reflective of my religious and political affiliations and the strong humanitarian stance I take on conflicts around the world. ECCC must lead the way with utmost sincerity in being a genuinely diverse and inclusive club. I wish ECCC the very best for the coming season and will continue to support the team as I have done every season since I was a boy.”

Essex respects the integrity Azeem has shown throughout this due diligence process, which found no evidence of anti-Semitism or racism by him. The Club acknowledges again Azeem’s all-round skill set and strength of character for the leadership role for which he was selected and is sorry to announce his resignation. We look forward to his continued support of the team. We thank Azeem and wish him well in the future.

The Club will be making no further comment.

We can confirm that Essex’s 3-day Tourist Match against Ireland at Chelmsford in late May is a First-Class fixture.

The game, which takes place between Friday 26 and Sunday 28 May, will be Ireland’s final preparation before their stand-alone Test Match against England at Lord’s.

Andrew Balbirnie’s side are gearing up for a return to Test Match cricket after their last thrilling outing at Lord’s in 2019, where they reduced England to 85 all out in their first innings before a second innings comeback saw England win by 143 runs.

Before Ireland’s tour of England, they have historic tours of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in April, playing their first Test Match against each nation.

While Essex fans have become accustomed to International outfits playing warm-up matches at Chelmsford in recent years, this summer’s fixture is set to have a different flavour with fixed starting XIs and any achievements counting towards the history books.

Tickets for the fixture will go on sale on Tuesday 21 February, along with tickets for the Vitality Blast, LV= Insurance County Championship and One Day Cup.

Essex County Cricket Club Members get ground entry to Essex v Ireland, along with LV= Insurance County Championship and One Day Cup fixtures as part of their Membership package.

To be contacted with ticket information as soon as they go on sale, sign up for our free ‘Over & Out!’ emails.

Five Essex players are guaranteed to feature in next year’s Hundred competition with Adam Rossington and Daniel Lawrence both being retained by London Spirit.

Outside of the Capital, Paul Walter and Sam Cook will return to Manchester Originals and Trent Rockets respectively.

Overseas all-rounder Daniel Sams will once again join Cook at Trent Rockets as they look to retain The Hundred trophy.

Team retentions have been revealed ahead of the player draft, which will take place on Thursday 02 March. This year the women’s competition will also have a draft for the first time.

The third edition of The Hundred will be played throughout August 2023 with the opening game taking place on the first of the month before the final on August 27.

Essex Cricket is delighted to announce that Luc Benkenstein has signed a new contract with the Club until the end of the 2024 season.

The 18-year-old made his debut for Essex Eagles in August 2021 against Durham in the Royal London One Day Cup and has since gone on to feature six times in the same competition.

All-rounder Benkenstein showed his quality in the 2022 Pakistan Junior League, scoring 217 runs at an average of 31 which saw the youngster named in the Team of the Tournament after the final.

Benkenstein also starred in the Club’s One Day Cup campaign in 2022. Essex’s 103 run win over Glamorgan at Chelmsford last season saw the leg-spinner take career best figures of 6-42.

After putting pen to paper on a new deal, Benkenstein said: “I’m delighted to sign a new deal with Essex! The Club have given me lots of opportunities to grow and develop as a player and I’m extremely grateful to them.

“I’ve loved my time in Chelmsford so far and I can’t wait for the 2023 season to get underway. Gaining valuable game time out in the Pakistan Junior League was amazing and I can’t wait to get back out in an Essex shirt soon. ”

Head Coach, Anthony McGrath added: “Luc has huge potential and we’re all thrilled that he has signed a new deal with the Club. He has featured for us several times in our One Day Cup sides and we’re all looking forward to seeing Luc progress over the next few years.”

Essex Cricket are recruiting for a Head of Commercial position to lead the successful and forward-thinking off-field departments at the Club.

As an individual, the successful candidate will take responsibility and accountability for the commercial operations of Essex Cricket, with the key objective on developing commercial revenues and managing multiple income streams across a number of business areas.

The Head of Commercial will be a member of the senior management team of Essex Cricket, and responsible for developing and delivering the commercial strategy of the Club. But this role requires much more than just developing and delivering strategy – they will be both visible and active in delivering your objectives and will be driven in achieving well thought through, deliberate and measurable results. This means that the candidate will have a commitment to not only growth, but profitability and of course quality – as these objectives will be delivered whist contributing to the Club-wide objective of providing outstanding experiences for customers which contribute to our revenue objectives.

In short, they will be responsible for optimising and developing a clear commercial and operational strategy whilst being accountable for various interrelated functions including sponsorships, partnerships, ticketing, hospitality, retail, non-match day conferencing/events and new business opportunities.

To be successful, the individual will very likely have clear and demonstrable experience of driving existing commercial operations, with a passion for developing innovative ways to generating new income streams. We are particularly keen to hear from those with this experience from outside of the sports industry. This role represents an exciting opportunity to join our leadership team and make a true impact in an already high performing and successful organisation.

McBride Sport have been retained on behalf of Essex Cricket to conduct this search process.

To receive a copy of the candidate pack or for an initial confidential discussion please contact Neil Edwards on 07858 518415 or email [email protected]

With under two months to go until the return of competitive cricket to Chelmsford, the Grounds Team are well underway with pitch preparations for the upcoming season.

The turf has been aerated to release any toxic gasses and improve root development before being rolled to settle the soil down.

Since then the team have been busy cutting the pitch, just by a few millimetres, to encourage sideways growth and thicken the grass.

During the next phase of preparations, the Team will be bringing covers back onto the pitch to start the drying process before they cut wickets for outdoor nets in six weeks’ time.

Meanwhile, Luke Lloyd of the Essex Grounds Team spent three days with Ipswich Town FC as part of the Building, Refining and Developing Sportsturf (BRADS) scheme, spending time at the training ground and helping prepare the stadium for matchday use.

The BRADS scheme, formerly the Sports Turf Industry Placement Programme, was developed by Essex Head Groundsperson Stuart Kerrison, Watford FC Grounds Manager Scott Tingley and former Arsenal FC Head Groundsperson Steve Braddock. The name of the programme was changed from STIPP to BRADS after the passing of Steve Braddock in 2022.

The scheme is designed to offer opportunities for groundspeople to develop their skills in different sports, stadia and environments with Luke Lloyd’s placement hopefully being the first of many as the industry looks to widen its sharing of knowledge and skills.

Join the Groundstaff

There are currently two opportunities available to work as part of the Essex County Cricket Club Groundstaff. We’re looking for a Lead Grounds Person to look after the preparation and maintenance of playing facilities at Billericay CC, where the Club’s development centre is based. A seasonal position is also available to assist the Lead Grounds Person at Billericay CC.

If you’re interested in joining our highly experienced and successful Team, apply via the link below.

Adam Rossington starred on Sunday as his Sunrisers Eastern Cape side clinched the inaugural SA20 title.

Sunrisers finished 13 points behind their fellow finalists, Pretoria Capitals, in the group stages and dominated in all areas to reach their target with four wickets and 22 balls to spare, in front of a sold-out crowd of 22,000 at the DP World Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg.

Rossington was named the team’s ‘Sunriser of the Match’ after smashing 57 off 30 balls, which included 26 runs in an over to reach the half-century in 20 balls.

The Sunrisers chased the total with ease after Somerset’s Roelof van der Merwe continued his superb tournament with the ball with four wickets.

Watch Rosso in action for the Eagles in this year’s Vitality Blast with tickets on general sale from Monday 21 February. Jump the queue by signing up to Over & Out e-news and buy your tickets online now – sign up here.