A plan to invest £35m of government funding into grassroots cricket to help revive the game in state schools is said to be severely under threat in Wednesday’s Budget.
A source close to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has told BBC Sport the pledge made by former prime minister Rishi Sunak in April is susceptible to fiscal cuts.
The cash injection was to be delivered over the next five years with one of the major aims to improve access to cricket for those outside of private education.
However, payments made to the ECB from that initiative were stopped shortly after July’s general election with no indication when they might restart.
Lisa Nandy, the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, and Sports Minister Stephanie Peacock have both held meetings with the ECB over the past few weeks to discuss the future of cricket.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport declined to comment, but it is understood they plan to make further decisions on future funding for grassroots sport after the spending review.
Government officials are also satisfied with the efforts made by the governing body to bring the sport to as wide an audience as possible in the wake of a critical report by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket in June 2023.
But with Chancellor Rachel Reeves looking to make tax rises and spending cuts in the Budget to the value of £40bn to address a “blackhole” in public finances, the package is on course to take a hit.
The ECB has been told it will not find out the full extent of the cuts until next spring when departmental allocations are set, but government sources indicate they have been braced for a major funding setback.
At his final Prime Minister’s Questions as leader of the opposition, shortly before the Budget announcement, Sunak urged the government to “continue the ECB’s new initiative to get cricket in far more state schools”.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer responded that “cricket does bring communities together” and noted “it’s important for children to enjoy lots of different sports because of the skills it teaches them”.