STRONG FOUNDATIONS

2022 was another fantastic year for the Sussex Cricket Foundation and 2023 is shaping up to be just as exciting.

There were many highlights during 2022: record numbers at DIScoverABILITY Day; becoming the first county to host a disability cricket fixture; significant investment into facilities in Crawley; and increased engagement with our communities to improve accessibility to The 1st Central County Ground and provide playing opportunities for people of all ages, genders, and abilities.

With participation and interest continuing to rise across all levels of the game, we need to continue this momentum and make cricket the game of choice for all.

This year is shaping up to be another exciting one for the foundation with many new initiatives, whilst we will continue to deliver our contractual obligations with the ECB, Chance to Shine and Lord’s Taverners.

In March we welcomed famous football manager Sam Allardyce as our guest speaker at our annual ‘Where Cricket Meets’ lunch. This is the foundation’s main fundraiser and raises significant funds to support our initiatives to grow the game and make it accessible to all.

This summer will see the launch of the Sussex Women’s Premier League and newly created Division One. With women’s and girls’ cricket continuing to grow at pace in Sussex, it was important for us to put a structure and pathway in place to help improve the quality of cricket and provide more opportunities to access the game.

The 1st Central Sussex Cricket League continues to grow and having listened to the views of our clubs a small restructure has taken place at the lower end of the pyramid to help ease the pressure on player availability at clubs. We are delighted to be hosting a Regional League T20 Finals Day featuring teams from Surrey, Kent and Hampshire in August and once again our League T20 Finals Day will be held in September at the 1st Central County Ground.

We continue to use the 1st Central County Ground to host events and provide opportunities for all to access the ground. DIScoverABILITY

Day, Junior Champions League, Schools Days and events to reward and recognise volunteers will all run again this summer.

On Sunday June 18, our D40 Disability Team will again take to the field at the 1st Central County Ground to play Middlesex. The fixture against Surrey last year was an historic and memorable occasion and showed our commitment to make all our disability participants feel part of Sussex Cricket.

Supporting our communities continues to be important and we are excited to implement our Urban Cricket Plans in Brighton and Crawley. Significant investment has been allocated into Crawley to help improve facilities and get all our clubs playing back within the town during this summer.

Our Sporting Memories and Walking Cricket programmes continue to grow and help support the older generation and we will once again be running our ‘In the Bag’ initiative to support families in need across Brighton & Hove, in conjunction with the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership. Our Mental

Health and Wellbeing Hub continues to provide a tool that can be accessed by anyone who needs to find support and guidance, an initiative extremely important to Sussex Cricket.

Finally, we continue to grow as a team, and we have recently recruited more community coaches to support our delivery programmes. My team deserve enormous credit for their hard work, passion, and commitment to helping grow the game and deliver against our objectives. I am lucky to have an extremely talented and passionate group that constantly go above and beyond to achieve success. They should be as proud of themselves as I am of them.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the foundation, volunteering on any of our programmes of donating towards our initiatives, then please contact foundation@sussexcricket.co.uk

Thank you for all your support and I look forward to seeing you for what is shaping up to be an exciting summer on and off the pitch.

Gary Wallis-Tayler, Community Cricket Director