The ECB has today announced that six regional development centres – each aligned to one of the current KSL franchises – are set to launch this autumn, to provide high-quality coaching for up to 120 talented girls under the age of 16.
The new regional development centres replace the existing England Women’s Development Programme (EWDP) for Under-15s, which was a national programme that catered for only 20 girls. Each new regional centre will act as a feeder of the most talented players into the senior KSL side, with the aim that girls selected for the centres will aspire to play not just for their county but for their local KSL team.
The launch has been made possible by the awarding of Sport England funding under their “Reward and Incentive Programme”, which rewards national governing bodies who have performed exceptionally well in the 2013-17 cycle with increased investment.
The Under-19 EWDP, meanwhile, will continue to exist in its current form.
CRICKETher 
The best thing to come out of this whole project.
I would still like to know more about the Club, County and WSL structure. The academies could take a lot of girls out of the system.
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While this is a good thing (girls and women seem to miss out on the best coaching, if they get any at all) there are many clubs who rely on their girls (for some entirely) to make up their teams – will these girls still be able to play for their club?
If not then taking yet another 120 out of the club scene could well spell the end for many clubs.
Once again we concentrate on under 16s – are we missing out on those who hit their peak later (spinners often do) and who seem to fall under the ECB radar?
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So we get over 2000 people at a domestic women’s cricket match, big media interest, and numerous county 1st and 2nd division players (many of whom presumably do or did play club cricket) saying these are the most amazing matches they have ever been involved in, in their entire lives. And yet from some of these comments you’d think the KSL was the worst idea since the solar-powered torch. It’s all a matter of perspective, I suppose.
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No doubt the KSL has been a genuine success but the long term resurgence of women’s and girls cricket needs a structure to support it for years to come.
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Perspective is everything. As you say, for those involved in it, it’s great. For those players not in Divs 1 & 2 or even lower down the ladder, the KSL and CC is of much less importance than the survival of their club and whether they can continue playing the game they love.
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Can someone point me in the direction of the official announcement on this?
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I believe this initiative came under the auspice of the participation director (Matt Dwyer) but CC also mentioned it in a lunch / tea time interview on TMS.
I heard originally that this was going to be open age to allow late flourishers to be brought into the fold but obviously not.
So there remains a gap for life after County U17s who don’t make the grade.
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It’s unfortunate that this remains an issues, a couple of seasons ago I met a guy who had started a club side specifically for the CAGs who didn’t make the full XI to try and keep them in the game. For some of the girls the attitude was if you couldn’t play for the full County side it wasn’t worth carrying on playing at all.
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After it was obvious that budget was the constraint to running an U19s county team, we tried to work with our county to run a team but the only contribution they were willing to make was contacting ex-CAG players and no access to existing CAG players to supplement the side, we couldn’t even use the County name.
Quite simply CAG do a great job upto U17 – but the Performance / County only wanted those on the England pathway, in their Academy.
Nothing will change under the current structure but the WSL in 2017 may challenge their County resources.
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