by If you love cricket but hate the idea of winter nets – the waiting in line, the cold, the squeaky silence of the coach – then perhaps a spirited game of indoor cricket will appeal to you. But trying to understand the different formats of the game and how it exists in the UK is like navigating through a particularly tangled bag of wet tissue.
Historically, there are two forms of indoor cricket. The first is played in a general sports center, with the idea of roughly recreating outdoor cricket, but indoors. Mates are sometimes established, but there are no specific laws or particular formats, and the game often emerges in an ad hoc manner. The second is “official” indoor cricket, played on a pitch with tension nets and a field 30 meters long, 10 to 12 meters wide and 4 to 5 meters high, a format that is played especially in Australia, but it is also big in New Zealand and South Africa. , with international competitions and a World Cup.
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The England and Wales Cricket Board runs two competitions: a women’s indoor competition for under-13s and under-15s, and a National Indoor Club Championship. Both fall within the category of general sports pavilion.
The ECB took over management of the women’s competition from the Lady Taverners. It is open to all schools and is played from January to Easter. The county winners compete at five regional venues across the country, then the five regional winners play at Lord’s in the national finals in the week before the May half term.
There has been a generous increase in the number of schools entering, with 1,903 signatures on the dotted line by 2024, an increase of 400 since 2015.
“It’s really encouraging,” says Sue Laister, ECB competition director for women’s and girls’ football. “As well as being an easy game to play, the fact that it is eight players per team means it can be played for between 45 minutes and an hour, which is the typical length of a school lesson or lunchtime.
“It is easier for schools to organize compared to outdoor cricket as schools usually have access to a gym or sports hall and less specialist equipment is needed.” Teams use a plastic bat and there is one innings, no pound, two overs maximum per bowler, and players must retire once they reach 15, although if the rest of the team is out they can bat again.
“It’s a very good introduction to the game,” says Laister. “Everyone participates, it is a fun, attractive and fast format.”
Approximately 500 teams from all over the country play in the National Indoor Club Championship organized by the ECB. The winners of each county competition play in a regional final, with a national final in March, again at Lord’s. This is a six-player competition, with 12 overs per team (maximum three overs per bowler) and matches take approximately one hour to complete.
Aside from that, there are the Bucs (British Universities and Colleges Sport) indoor cricket leagues, which are very popular, partly due to the nature of university terms, which leave little time for outdoor university cricket in summer. In fact, the University of Kent won the ECB National Indoor Club Championships in 2023, beating the University of Sheffield in the final.
Jen Barden is director of cricket development at the Lancashire Foundation. She recalls that indoor cricket was played during the winter 20 years ago and she acknowledges that there is now a slight shortfall in provision, but there is a reason for that: “It is a high-cost activity. In one hour only 16 children will have participated and it is necessary to rent a place and have a referee as well.” Lancashire does not usually organize competitions, but they are happy to provide advice and equipment to anyone who wishes. “It depends a little bit on who has the virus in a particular area.” Barden remembers a purpose-built tension net indoor cricket center in Rochdale, “but now the nearest one is in Birmingham”.
Which brings us to Action Indoor Cricket England and its chairman, Duncan Norris. Norris is England’s delegate to the World Indoor Cricket Federation, and Birmingham-based Action Indoor Cricket is in charge of national, national and international teams and tournaments.
“In the 80s and 90s there were more than 60 cricket centers with nets and there was huge participation,” he says. “People like Mike Gatting and Asif Din started playing the format as an additional form. Unfortunately, the business model is very complicated to make work in this country with high tariffs and very seasonal activity. So, gradually, most of those centers closed.” There are now only four flashpoints left in the country, all based in the Midlands, in Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and Birmingham.
Norris’s involvement came when he bought Bristol Indoor Cricket Center (which later closed after Covid financial pressures) from administrators in 2009 and reinvested in it. He was then hired as a consultant by the ECB before “in 2014, the ECB asked my company to govern, manage and develop the game and we signed a memorandum of understanding.”
He is a big believer in the tension net version of indoor cricket, both as a way of developing cricketers and as a participation sport.
“It’s a high-pressure competition and everyone has to hit, throw and play, there’s no hiding place. Over the last 30 years, cricket has changed dramatically, becoming shorter and more dynamic, with more and more skills being seen on outdoor pitches. In the inside format, the fielding skills are electric.”
Between September and March, at the Birmingham Center in Stockland Green, Action Indoor Cricket runs 24 weeks of evening leagues, Monday to Friday, and 24 weekends of domestic competitions for all age groups, from under 11s to masters (over 50 years). He is extremely proud of the number of people who come to play. “There are approximately 1,000 games during the winter months, with 16 players involved per game; in the summer, a club would do well to host between 40 and 50 games.” Players also come from diverse backgrounds, with 60% of those playing in local midweek leagues having Asian backgrounds.
Perhaps most notable of all, Norris believes the game is about to enter a new realm, something that could catch the attention of the ECB and even the International Cricket Council.
“Globally, the game is about to explode,” he says, “now that the United Arab Emirates has come to the party with three major hubs in Dubai.”
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