Ebony Rainford-Brent: "The game has been shocked, so I've seen a transformation in conversations"

NICK FRIEND speaks to the founder of the ACE Programme following its expansion into Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester and London boroughs

"Honestly," says Ebony Rainford-Brent, "if you'd asked me two years ago about diversity in the game as a whole, I had little hope because, while everybody was positive, I didn't feel the same sense of urgency that I felt about the issue."

At the beginning of April, the ECB announced it was putting sufficient financial support behind the ACE Programme to enable the initiative's expansion into Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester and further London boroughs, having launched at the start of 2020 in the area around The Oval through Surrey, whose substantial backing – stemming from the leadership of former chief executive Richard Gould – has included underwriting early investment, putting in more funds, providing free office space and offering the services of their in-house marketing team.

The upshot of that legacy has been the speed of growth – it was Gould who pushed Rainford-Brent to imagine this as a nationwide venture, and then further investment from Sport England that made those ambitions a reality. ACE predates the murder of George Floyd, but the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent reckoning faced by English cricket in light of Azeem Rafiq's experiences have belatedly forced the sport into action.

For that reason, she enters this summer with more optimism around this theme than ever before.

"I'd have thought it would have taken us a decade to get to the level of awareness needed to put these initiatives in," Rainford-Brent tells The Cricketer. "But the game has been shocked, so what I've seen is a transformation in conversations where now it's on everybody's agenda and it's at the top of the agenda."

In an ideal world, of course, this would have happened organically and without need for independent schemes – like ACE and SACA (South Asian Cricket Academy) – to take on the mantle themselves.

^{ACE has now launched across nine counties and six target cities (Image credit: ACE)}

"But from my perspective, I really don't mind now how we've got to this point – what I would say is we're at the stage now where everyone we talk to is fully behind us, engaged and aware that we need to make a difference. The transformation has been a real turnaround. I now have a sense of hope that this is going to be a gamewide approach that I didn't have two years ago.

"I feel like before you had to convince people that this was an important issue, but now that we're on the same train, how do we get there together? There was a lot of frustration in the early days, and then you also have to be patient as well.

"But I think we're now at the stage where the conversations are about implementation rather than asking if they even knew there was an issue. That's a good place to be."

She has seen a shift in priorities, citing parallels to the rise of the women's game in recent years. Following ACE's latest upscale, nine counties – Surrey, Warwickshire, Bristol, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Kent and Essex – are signed up, together completing the six-city hitlist put together on the back of significant research. Other pockets have been in touch, and there is also a keenness to branch out into disability cricket.

Between incline costs and staff – five of whom are full-time (but don't include Rainford-Brent, who is an unpaid driving force for an essential project: "I'm not staff – no pay, no nothing. I don't get a penny. I put in a lot of hours because I'm just passionate about it") – each hub costs close to £100,000 to set up and run, and The Cricketer understands that the ECB's latest contribution – which also includes funding for a national operations manager – is worth £400,000.

"Everyone was aware that this was something they wanted to improve," she adds, "but where was it on the list of things that we all have to think about in our day? It might not have been a priority. That is the most important thing. Diversity will go from non-priority to high-priority, and I'm confident that in the next five years we'll see sharp change, and in 10 years those practices will be embedded so it becomes part of the game's DNA that it's how we operate.

"That's the dream for me – and that's why it was important for us to work with the ECB, because we need this to be embedded in all parts of the game."

^{The ECB has helped to fund the initiative's latest expansion (Image credit: ACE)}

Clare Connor has become a go-between since ACE initially approached the national governing body. Rainford-Brent's first meeting was with Gould and Ian Watmore, then the ECB's chair. That was a year ago, and it has taken a lengthy process to secure sign-off on the funding, which came through in February following the submission of their bid in November.

When announcing the expansion of its partnership with ACE, the ECB also revealed a £1million provision to reduce financial barriers for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to access county talent pathways, with an emphasis on equipment, travel and facilities. In recent months, this branch of the subject has been widely discussed, with former England wicketkeeper Matt Prior among those most vocal.

Interestingly, ACE put a budget together for cricket gear but have not found it to be the major barrier.

Rainford-Brent explained: "We've found that the bigger barriers are more around travel, access and location. What we found is that the community needs to be attractive, first and foremost. It has to seem valuable to put the time into, the location has to be accessible.

"It's important that a young person coming to ACE knows that you don't have to have all the kit. Sometimes you can be put off by that, but we're saying that we will sort you out, so come with whatever you've got. Then, it's no longer a barrier because we will provide it.

"It has to be valuable for the parents too – the reason I think ACE is different is that the parents know that if their kids have potential and they do well, it's worth them getting their kids there. Whereas if it was just a general, casual session and you're working two jobs, that's a hard choice, right?"

So, for Rainford-Brent, the most important aspect of ACE is the establishment of a talent pathway that leads somewhere tangible, like professional cricket. She recalls her own formative years and the difficulty of leaping from basic participation to something more substantial. "There were so many barriers," she explains.

^{ACE was established at Surrey at the start of 2020 (Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images)}

"That's why it was quite clear that this needed to be a joined-up system – I don't think we were thinking about it in that way as a game. General engagement was the priority, and everyone has now realised that for it to be a system that works, you have to think about all the touch-points, all the barriers and the things that need breaking down. ACE had to be a talent pathway because I know how hard it is to jump through those steps.

"Let's be honest, it's going well at the moment because this is an area that the game needs to focus on, but in five years' time we're going to get a knock on the door asking where the talent is coming through. We need to be finding talent and converting good numbers of boys and girls."

Although the programme was initially set up with the black community in mind "because of how great the drop had been", venturing into those target areas has highlighted underrepresentation across a broad range of minority groups. So, while the hitlist cities have not changed, ACE's tagline – 'supporting diverse talent from the grassroots to the elite' – has been devised to service anyone who might come across the initiative.

"If you look at the academy the focus is that if you're from that community and want to play, get in touch," Rainford-Brent explains. "But as we've evolved, if you look at the hubs in our communities, they are from all sorts of communities. As those young people evolve – and they're coming through the same barriers – we'll find that in years to come, it will be an evolution which ensures it will be high numbers of the black British community coming through, but you will have others – white working class, Afghan kids, black British.

"I think a bigger problem we have in the game is more a class issue than race. I've always been aware of that. So, while we'll focus on areas with strong black British communities to ensure that we don't end up in 10 years' time with no players, we have to bring everybody through because most of these kids are going through the exact same challenges. If we can bring through someone who would never have had the chance to walk that pathway, and being part of ACE has opened up that door, then that's a win."