From Wicketz participant to coach – leaving a Wicketz legacy

As the Lord's Taverners celebrates 75 years of changing lives through cricket, throughout 2025 the charity is shining a spotlight on some of those who have benefitted from the introduction of their free and inclusive national cricket programmes

CHARITY FEATURE

In 2012 the charity’s Wicketz programme – a community cricket programme aimed at young people aged 8–19 living in areas of deprivation, which uses cricket as a tool for social change – launched in West Ham to give young people a safe, welcoming space to play cricket. That’s where 13-year-old Manav Patel stepped in: new to the country, not yet speaking the language… but ready to be part of something. 

Fast forward to today, Wicketz is now delivered in 19 different locations across the UK and Manav is now leading the very Wicketz project that helped shape his future, as the Capital Kids Cricket Wicketz Development Officer in West Ham.

“My parents moved to the UK in 2008. There are a lot of different barriers to overcome when coming to a different country and trying to settle in, including a language barrier for me. I was quite shy at the time but in 2012 one of my friends told me that there was a new cricket club starting nearby.

“There were about seven of us at West Ham Park just down the road from me and from the moment I first went, we were there every single week without missing a session. Financially we weren’t in the best position when we came to the country, but to have something like this for free was huge for us.”

Sport has an incredible power to develop a young person beyond just learning the technical skills of any game that you play. As Wicketz has developed, Manav (and many others at Wicketz hubs across the UK), has found a family through Wicketz. Being part of it helped him learn English and 13 years on, he is now a focal point of his community. 

“When I first started, everyone at Wicketz could speak my language, and we felt we were part of something bigger. There were leadership opportunities, even though we were quite young, we felt like we were trying to achieve something in our community. It was an environment where I could be free and be who I was.”

Manav now leads West Ham Wicketz sessions, which is invaluable for participants joining the project. Having a role model leading a community cricket hub who has been in his participants shoes previously, and also knows the community and challenges it faces, is a hugely impactful thing.

“My old Wicketz coach called me in 2023 when I happened to be looking for a job, and he offered me an opportunity to be an intern coach for a year, something which was made possible through Jack Petchey funding. I learnt so much during that year, not just about coaching but all the small things that help you be successful in developing young people not just as cricketers but in their regular life.”

“I can picture myself in their position right now, the way they mess about, the things they say and do. I was like that when I was younger. I’m sure Dan (Senior Wicketz Programme Manager) can share more about that as he saw me at my worst at our residentials a few years back! 

“But knowing what they’re going through and what can cause that behaviour puts me in a great position to be able to help them. I can really relate to it which has really helped me build up a rapport with the young people I work with.”

Senior Wicketz Programme Manager, Dan Wilson, first got involved in Wicketz through his role as the Luton Wicketz Development Officer and he experienced a special moment during the 2023 Wicketz residential that showed how far both Manav, and Wicketz have come: “I met Manav as a participant for the first time at one of our first national Wicketz residentials in 2016 and we had a full circle moment in 2023, where he was now bringing a group of participants to a residential himself and having the conversations with them, that we as Development Officers would have been having with Manav nearly 10 years previously!

“Wicketz is not a short-term fix, it’s a long-term investment to develop a community around sport. We want to help young people in deprived areas get access to cricket that they wouldn’t have otherwise. On top of all of that, it’s about developing young people, building life skills and helping participants tackle negative issues that affect them in their day to day lives. To see Manav overcoming the challenges he faced through Wicketz, and now helping lead a Wicketz hub he benefited from himself, shows just how impactful the programme is, and why it’s essential such community sports hubs exist.”  

Want to get involved in Wicketz?

If you’d like to follow in Manav’s footsteps, find out how you can get involved via www.lordstaverners.org/wicketz