2026 has been a special year for women's and girls' cricket in England and Wales. 🏆Hosting the ICC Women's T20 World Cup enabled us to inspire more women and girls to play, lead, and volunteer in the game they love. 🏏 125,000+ girls picked up a bat and ball on Schools Cricket Day alone, and 11,055 girls' fixtures were played across England and Wales, the result being another record-breaking year for the number of girls playing the game. 📈 And to ensure this growth is becoming sustainable, £5 million was invested into women's and girls' facilities this year with more to come, ensuring that the legacy of a home World Cup supports the long-term delivery of the game. And 2027 will be even bigger. Find out how to start, grow, and sustain girls' cricket with the Girls Cricket Accelerator Toolkit, a simple practical resource designed for volunteers and administrators to ensure that there are more opportunities than ever for women and girls to play cricket. cricketcollective.zendesk.co…

We recently launched two major new initiatives designed to expand opportunities for young people to play cricket in state secondary schools across England and Wales. Following a successful pilot programme during the 2025/26 academic year, Cricket For Teachers and Secondary Countdown Cricket have funding for Recreational Cricket Boards across England and Wales to offer both initiatives to state secondary schools in their area. You can find out more here ➡️ ecb.co.uk/news/4586952 Thanks to those schools, RCBs, partners, and @chriswoakes, Alex Hartley and Alfie Pyle in supporting the launch.