FOR A BETTER FUTURE

ECB's All Stars - Shot in the dark for brighter future

by Rob Johnston • Last updated on

58,000 boys and girls in the UK have taken part in sessions specifically designed for 5-8 year-old children to address falling interest. © Getty

Five year-old Oliver Guest smiled wide as his dad, Pete, took a photo of him in his new All Stars kit. Standing just behind Oliver, leaning on the advertising hoardings at the County Ground in Bristol, was Heather Knight, England's World Cup-winning captain, who had just scored 97 for Western Storm in the Kia Super League and was now posing for the camera. She had just signed Oliver's autograph book and the delight on his face was plain to see. Knight had made his day.

By Pete's own admission, Oliver has "got the cricketing bug". His interest has been sparked after taking part in the All Stars programme at Heathcote CC in Tiverton. Decked out in his distinctive light blue and orange gear, Oliver has, along with 58,000 other boys and girls up and down the UK, been taking part in sessions specifically designed by the ECB for five to eight-year-old children as they attempt to address falling interest in the nation's summer sport.

In 2015, the governing body commissioned some market research. The responses showed that more children recognised an American wrestler, John Cena, than they did Alastair Cook, who was then England's Test captain. Sixty percent of the children did not mention cricket when listing their top ten sports. The year before, a different survey on participation in recreational cricket found that playing numbers had fallen sharply over the previous year. In short, cricket was sleepwalking out of the national consciousness.

There were, and still are, many factors at play here. The lack of live cricket on terrestrial television since the 2005 Ashes series has hidden England's cricketers behind a paywall while the shift away from traditional Monday to Friday, nine to five working hours has impacted weekend playing numbers and county cricket watchers. For many, an entire day spent playing or watching cricket is simply not sustainable.

The ECB, recognising a looming crisis when they saw one, decided to implement a strategy called Cricket Unleashed, designed to "get a bat and a ball into more hands, introduce more people to the power of cricket and show a new generation how to get involved." A five-year plan, Cricket Unleashed was a strategy to increase engagement with the game built on five pillars.

This is where the new eight-team, 100-ball competition, set to begin in 2020, has its origins. It is part of the 'Inspired Fans' pillar, where finding a new audience is a key ambition. It remains to be seen what exactly 'The Hundred' looks like - 10 ball overs, 12-a-side, aliens flying in to play - but this is the driver behind it. Whatever your view of the proposals for the competition itself, it is hard to argue the motivation is unsound.

However, while The Hundred is making most of the headlines - many of them negative thanks to a bungled PR campaign - and framing debates about county cricket, the game's finances and corporate governance at the ECB, All Stars is arguably a more important part of the governing body's strategy to improve cricket's position in the British sporting landscape.

Last year, 37,000 children enrolled in the programme, a decent effort even if it was short of the ECB's original target of 50,000. This year that number grew to 58,000 in more than 2,000 All Star centres. The number of girls involved has increased this year by 90% to around 12,500. The uptake is reward for what has largely been a well thought-out marketing strategy, something which stands in stark contrast to the handling of The Hundred.

A centralised advertising campaign for All Stars has involved many different channels, including social media using the hashtag #bigmoments. The ECB conducted roadshows to explain the idea to their network of clubs, but they also consulted Mumsnet and Netmums, two online parenting organisations who helped to design and publicise the programme. The ECB took out cinema advertising and radio spots to coincide with school leaving time and gave all participating children their own kit bag with bat, ball and t-shirt.

There are more phases of the roll out to come, too. There are plans to integrate All Stars with other programmes including Chance to Shine, the charity which provides cricket coaching in schools and which has recently coached its four millionth child, to link the strategy for the South Asian community which is a huge potential growth area. There will also be a link-up during next summer's World Cup and something is likely to be done in association with the The Hundred as well.

The success of the programme has been in large part due to the breadth and strength of this marketing strategy. At a time when English cricket is still largely hidden behind Sky's paywall, the governing body has been criticised for not doing enough to centrally market the domestic game, but All Stars proves that when the ECB mobilise their considerable financial clout, they can come up with a sophisticated, cohesive strategy that works. That, at least, should bode well for The Hundred.

All Stars is clearly not a panacea but with greater integration into other aspects of the ECB's Cricket Unleashed strategy, the numbers should continue to grow. ©Getty

It is difficult to know how many of the boys and girls who have enrolled in All Stars over the past two years had an interest in cricket before but in general, few clubs had programmes for this age group before the programme came into being, with most starting instead at Under-9 level. Without All Stars, therefore, it is likely that cricket might not have even registered with a large proportion of the 58,000 children who took part this year.

Once the ECB got their attention, keeping it has been a key principle of the All Stars design. By creating fun, child-centred sessions with lots of activity and little pressure or expectation, the idea is that the children will "get the bug" and then continue with the game throughout their childhood and, hopefully, into adulthood too.

Importantly in this respect, the hour-long sessions have not focused on teaching the children to use a high elbow when defending or keeping the ball on the ground. Instead, they are centred on getting each child to do as much hitting, throwing and catching as possible. Technique can come later. "We didn't mention a forward defence once," says Rick Walton, a community cricket coach for Pembrokeshire and cricket blogger, who led the sessions at Llanrhian CC in Wales.

There's rationale behind this. ECB-conducted research by Playbook, the consultancy firm who are also helping with The Hundred, showed that at age five it is the parents who make decisions about their child's leisure time, but as the child gets older, at seven and eight years old, they increasingly make their own choices. If they have had fun playing cricket before, so the theory goes, children are more likely to stick with it when they start making decisions about how they spend their time.

Watching a session at Old Southendian and Southchurch CC in Essex, it's not hard to see why the kids there love it. One of the drills for the younger children has them attempting to hit a ball placed on top of a plastic cone as far as they can. Because the ball is stationary, they have more chance of hitting it, allowing them to focus solely on whacking it as hard as they can. Once they hit the first ball, another is placed on the cone by the coach for them to hit. For catching, the children start off with small bean bags, which are far easier to hold on to than a bouncy rubber ball. High volume, more likely success rates and great fun.

The sessions can be moulded to suit different circumstances too. The ECB's research told them that three quarters of children in the UK spend less time outside than a prison inmate and lack of green spaces is one of the contributing factors. Therefore, the programme has been designed to be "flexible" and "run anytime anywhere at any time of the year." A number of clubs told Cricbuzz that they found it relatively easy to run their All Stars programme with few administrative hoops to jump through.

While All Stars is about getting children to play the game, another important aspect of the programme is getting parents involved, encouraging them to help out at the sessions and spend some quality time with their child. If they enjoy it, perhaps they will become future club treasurers or secretaries, helping to address the chronic shortage of volunteers at club level.

The ECB have conducted surveys of participant clubs, the children and their parents, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, but there are areas that need to be looked at as the programme is developed. Some clubs think the age range of five to eight years is too wide, with the younger children needing far more attention than the older kids. Some of last year's drills and games have been repeated this year which has led to some children getting bored.

For clubs who ran their own initiatives at this age-group before All Stars, like Sidcup CC, the financials need to be considered too. "We were making GBP 20 per child, instead of the GBP 5 we get from All Stars," Tim Cook, who leads the programme at Sidcup CC, says. "The club has lost nearly GBP 1,000 per year as a result of joining All Stars which was the difference between us being in the black and in the red last year."

No matter how much the programme develops, however, All Stars will not fix the participation problem on its own and there remain challenges of keeping children interested in the game long-term. The ECB are already looking at shortening pitches for Under-9 level, an important development to make the game easier to play, but more needs to be done to keep children's interest - particularly through their teenage years. A general review of adult club cricket should also be considered.

All Stars is clearly not a panacea, then, but with greater integration into other aspects of the ECB's Cricket Unleashed strategy, the number of children taking up the game through the programme should continue to grow. This does not remove the many challenges still facing the ECB but with more five to eight-year olds playing the game, there's far more chance that at least some of those will "get the bug" and stick with the game of cricket. Whatever The Hundred turns into, for the future of the game in the United Kingdom, that is arguably of far greater importance.

© Cricbuzz