Welcome....and thank you for your interest in International Community Cricket Trust
While professional cricket in England and Wales and in most parts of the world - in India particularly! - is entering a new era of prosperity, community cricket played on village greens, club grounds and local authority sports grounds throughout the UK, is in urgent need of long-term practical help and support. Now, more than ever before!
Community cricket clubs are faced with ever steeply rising costs in all areas; school playing fields and local authority sports grounds are being sold off for housing and commercial development; and cricket for those with physical disabilities, the blind and partially-sighted; and the women's game, is woefully underfunded. Compounding this, there is a continuing - and increasing - shortage of qualified, competent, umpires and scorers.
Cricket is an active sport that raises fitness levels and instils discipline, particularly in youngsters.
It is also inclusive; anyone can play without having to be super-thin, super-fit, or super-talented, and
irrespective of their, height, weight, gender, background, or disabilities. The young can play in the same
team as the not-so-young. Women and girls play it - and their participation is growing! Matches
between blind and partially-sighted teams and between players with other disabilities, are perhaps more
keenly contested than those between their more able-bodied colleagues. 
It is a genuinely multi-racial, multi-cultural, sport; one that promotes the virtues of fair play,
'doing the right thing', accepting the umpire's decision and so on. These days, more than ever before,
our young people - particularly those in inner city and urban areas - need to be educated in these
disciplines and ethics and taught to respect them. In community cricket, the phrase 'it's not cricket'.
still has a meaning, albeit one that, sadly, is coming increasingly under threat. Having been granted charitable status, International Community Cricket Trust is beginning - through its not-for-profit subsidiaries, On-Side Cricket and the (independent) International Institute of Cricket Umpiring & Scoring - to put into action its exciting long-term plans to provide not only 'one-stop-shop' support resources exclusively for all community cricket clubs throughout the UK, but also to act as their majority representative voice to the governing bodies, the different leagues' administrators, the MCC, the County Boards, the DCMS, Sport England, the media and, not least, to the major commercial sponsors of professional cricket.
Those well-known major sponsors of professional cricket such as Accenture, BSkyB, Emirates, nPower, LG, Vodafone, Investec, Dilmah, NatWest Bank, Sahara, Travelex, et al, pour literally millions of pounds/dollars annually into sponsoring televised Twenty/20, 3/4/5-day Test Matches, 50-over One Day Internationals (ODIs), 40-over One-Day County Competitions, and various other international and domestic cup competitions; all of which are highly profitable for the national governing bodies of the professional game and the TV companies, and benefit considerably also the comparatively small number of contracted professional players involved. Yet the professional game represents less than 1% of all cricket played!
Unfortunately, very little, if any, of these sponsorship millions either percolates down to the real heartland levels of community cricket clubs where it is so desperately needed, or is allocated specifically to long-term recruitment, professional training, development and grading programmes for those (other) essential participants in all matches, the umpires and scorers; the very individuals whose competence - or lack of it - can make or mar those matches for the players, their clubs and spectators alike!
Whatever the reasons - whether it be official governing body policy, the Return-on-Investment (RoI) policy criteria of each individual sponsor; or a lack of awareness/understanding on the part of their ad agencies, sponsorship consultants, and/or in-house marketing departments - the result of this fundamental failure to recognise the importance, value and potential of taking their 'brands' directly to the 2,000,000+ committed participants in this deeply loyal niche market is that, commercially, they are missing out big time!
