The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) would “have a look at” the weird step of funding a ladies’s Take a look at within the West Indies subsequent 12 months in an effort to help England’s Ashes preparations.
The Take a look at within the Caribbean, a part of a multi-format collection within the spring of 2027, was introduced in 2024 and is scheduled earlier than England’s bid to regain the Ashes from Australia.
Final week, Cricket West Indies (CWI) introduced a variety of money-saving measures, together with cuts to participant contracts.
In March, a ladies’s Take a look at that West Indies had been because of host in opposition to Australia was cancelled, although the white-ball aspect of that tour went forward.
There have been no discussions between the ECB and CWI about cancelling the Take a look at.
The tour as an entire – together with three T20s and three one-day internationals in April and Could of subsequent 12 months – just isn’t underneath risk, although actual dates and venues are nonetheless to be confirmed.
Requested by BBC Sport if the Take a look at was unsure, ECB chair Richard Thompson mentioned: “I hope not. That is not anticipated to be cancelled. I hope it’s going to happen.”
Nonetheless, when it was put to Thompson that the ECB may have to supply some funding for the Take a look at to happen, he mentioned his organisation would “have a look at” the scenario ought to it come up.
Governing our bodies normally have reciprocal preparations for the house board to select up the logistical bills of the visiting group, together with issues like journey and lodging.
Within the West Indies, these could be inflated by the price of flying West Indies and visiting gamers between islands. Final week, CWI mentioned it has spent greater than $80m on home air journey prior to now 15 years.
Thompson pointed to a equally uncommon scenario when the Zimbabwe males’s group performed a Take a look at in England final 12 months, with the ECB paying the guests a touring price.
“We wish that Take a look at match to play out,” mentioned Thompson. “It is essential for us as a result of our first ladies’s match within the Ashes is the Headingley Take a look at, so we’d like a superb red-ball warm-up.
“We have to be taking part in someplace and we would a lot favor that to be the West Indies.
“All of us have an enormous sympathy for the West Indies, all of us wish to see a profitable West Indian nation. They’ve very distinctive challenges and I hope by the Worldwide Cricket Council and others we will discover a approach by this.”
The primary match of the multi-format ladies’s Ashes collection is the only real Take a look at at Headingley in June – the one Take a look at, males’s or ladies’s, staged north of Nottingham subsequent summer time.
England have performed one Take a look at since they misplaced each recreation on the Ashes tour of Australia in early 2025 – a defeat by India at Lord’s earlier this 12 months.
They haven’t performed West Indies in a ladies’s Take a look at since 1979, whereas West Indies haven’t performed a Take a look at in opposition to anybody since a visit to Pakistan in 2004.
The Take a look at in West Indies is one a part of England’s Ashes Take a look at preparations. In January, the squad will participate in a 10-day red-ball coaching camp in India.
In 2023, England performed Australia A and Australia performed England A as Take a look at warm-up matches and that association may very well be replicated in 2027. Plans for home gamers to probably be concerned in some red-ball cricket within the early a part of subsequent season are additionally being finalised.
Thompson was talking at Lord’s because the ECB launched initiatives to take cricket to greater than 1,700 state secondary faculties and greater than 3,500 academics.
‘Cricket for Academics’ and ‘Secondary Countdown Cricket’ are a part of the ECB’s intention to achieve half of all state secondary faculties in England and Wales by the tip of 2028.
Earlier this 12 months, a report by the Sutton Belief discovered cricket to be one of the vital elitist jobs within the nation, with 59% of male professionals and 50% of girls privately educated.
“We actually need academics to upskill and be capable of coach,” mentioned Thompson. “The second half is to have the ability to do one thing no different group sport can do, which is deliver girls and boys collectively till the age of 16.
“This provides to the pathway. It is one other stepping stone for a late developer, or a possibility for somebody to suppose they wish to play the sport correctly, with a hardball.
“It is significant in that we wish to attain one and a half million kids who’ve by no means performed the sport earlier than. That is a major programme and the ambition that sits behind this.”
