Women's cricket in England and Wales has grown faster over the past five years than almost any other grassroots sport, and the funding and sponsorship routes supporting it have had to catch up quickly. A women's or girls' team starting out today has more funding schemes to explore than a team would have found even three years ago, but they sit across several different funders, each with its own criteria, and accessing them still takes work. This guide sets out where the growth is coming from, the grants open specifically to women's and girls' cricket, and how sponsorship fills the gap grants consistently leave.
Why women's cricket is growing right now
The Hundred, a 100-ball format launched in 2021, is a significant driver behind this. Eight city-based teams, unconnected to the county game, play in front of large, family-oriented crowds. The format's defining feature is what has driven the visibility shift: one ticket covers both a men's and a women's fixture, played back-to-back at the same ground, so a crowd arriving for the men's game sees the women's game as a matter of course rather than as a separate ticket decision. Research from Loughborough University describes this structure as having helped level the playing field for the women's game specifically because of this shared billing.
The profile of women's cricket has increased even more so in 2026. England hosted the ICC Women's T20 World Cup which saw record breaking crowds and created unprecedented visibility for the female game. The same summer saw the first-ever women's Test at Lord's, drawing a world record cumulative Test attendance of 37,846 across four days and the highest attendance ever recorded for a women's Test in the UK.
The ECB's own participation figures show this increased visibility translating directly into new clubs and teams. As of September 2025, strong growth in the number of teams competing was apparent in the women's game (up 18% against the previous August) and the girls' game (up 13%). Between July 2024 and August 2025, the number of clubs running a girls' section rose from 888 to 1,102 and clubs with a women's section rose from 1,324 to 1,539, while girls' teams grew from 2,176 to 2,772 and women's teams from 2,405 to 2,952 over the same period. The most recent figures emphasise this further still: more than 520,000 women and girls have played cricket across England and Wales in 2025, and grassroots women's and girls' teams now number over 6,000, nearly double the 3,200 recorded in 2022. The ECB's national programmes for younger players, All Stars and Dynamos, recorded a record 30,627 girls taking part.
ECB investment into women and girls cricket
The ECB's headline commitment is a minimum of £25m a year, made in September 2023 in response to the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket report. The money is earmarked for growing the women's and girls' game at every level, from grassroots participation through to the professional game, for the rest of the current broadcast cycle, which runs to 2028. It is an annual figure rather than a one-off pot, and it sits above whatever the women's game itself earns in revenue rather than being funded out of it.
A further, separate commitment followed in early 2024, alongside the tender for ownership of the women's professional teams: an additional £4m to £5m a year specifically for the women's professional game, running from 2025 to 2028, which takes total annual investment in the professional game to around £16m. The ECB frames this as a step up from its existing professional-game spending rather than money sitting on top of the wider £25m commitment, so the two figures describe different parts of the ECB's investment.
Grants open to women's and girls' cricket teams
Two ECB-run funds carry an explicit priority for women's and girls' cricket, on top of the general cricket grants covered in our full guide to cricket club grants.
The County Grants Fund is the ECB's headline grant route, with investment doubled to £5m for 2026. Awards typically run from £1,000 to £15,000, rising to £50,000 for larger enhanced changing facilities projects, and priority goes to clubs with an established women's or girls' section, disability cricket, or a specific ECB participation programme running. A women's or girls' section gives a club's application a real edge here.
The Building Belonging in Cricket Fund sits alongside it, aimed specifically at projects benefiting women and girls, disabled participants, lower-income communities and ethnically diverse groups. The fund is locally led, with projects developed out of needs identified in each county's own Recreational Cricket strategy, so the strongest applications start with a conversation with the county board rather than a cold submission.
Outside the ECB's own schemes, the Metro Bank Girls in Cricket Fund is worth exploring. Metro Bank is the ECB's first-ever Champion of Women's and Girls' Cricket, and the fund, co-created and co-funded with the ECB since 2024, invests in coaches and volunteers with an ambition of tripling the number of girls' cricket teams. Metro Bank reports 400 newly trained coaches through the fund so far and a 32% rise in girls' cricket teams since launch. In July 2026, the fund expanded further through a new partnership with Take Her Lead, the charity founded by Isa Guha, to build a dedicated network for the volunteers, coaches and officials running the women's and girls' game across 38 Recreational Cricket Boards, investing in the people behind the sport rather than teams alone. A club with an active or planned girls' section fits this fund's priority closely.
The Sport England Movement Fund awards £300 to £15,000 for projects tackling inactivity and inequality and lists girls aged 5 to 16 among the participation groups it prioritises.
What grants do not cover
Every one of the funds above is built for participation growth, facilities or a named project. None of them are designed to fund a season's kit for a women's or girls' team, new or established, this is where sponsorship comes in.
Sponsorship: the fastest route to kit
A cricket kit sponsorship for a grassroots team typically costs between £600 and £1,500. Through Kit Funder, a full eleven-player squad kit costs £992, covering the season's playing kit at a fixed, upfront cost to the sponsoring business rather than the club. For a women's or girls' team specifically our guide to grassroots cricket design covers why kit designed for women and girls matters and what to consider before signing off a design.
A women's or girls' cricket team looking for a sponsor should start with personal connections, businesses already linked to players, parents or the club, before moving to a structured direct approach or turning to Kit Funder, which removes the outreach and follow-up work entirely. The full approach, including what to include in a sponsorship request and how to follow up effectively, is set out in our guide to securing sponsors for a grassroots team. For a business considering sponsorship for the first time, the wider case for grassroots sponsorship, including the tax treatment, is set out in our guide to sponsoring a grassroots sports team and our guide to sponsorship and tax.
Sponsoring women's and girls' cricket carries a specific advantage right now, as it is part of the wider shift and appeal covered in our guide to why women's grassroots sport sponsorship is growing so fast.
Putting the funding picture together
A well-funded women's or girls' cricket team will pursue all levels of funding, however applying to every scheme at once overwhelms a small committee. Start with sponsorship, since it solves sourcing and paying for kit then layer a grant application once this has been sorted.
Your Kit, Funded. Register your women's or girls' cricket team free at kitfunder.ai/teams and Kit Funder starts matching you with a business ready to fund the season's kit, at no cost to the club.
Common questions about women's cricket funding
How much funding has the ECB committed to women's and girls' cricket?
In September 2023, responding to the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket report, the ECB committed to investing a minimum of £25m a year, above forecasted women's revenues, to grow the women's and girls' game at every level through the current broadcast cycle to 2028. A separate 2024 announcement added a further £4m to £5m a year for the women's professional game specifically from 2025 to 2028, taking annual investment in the professional game to around £16m.
What grants are available for women's and girls' cricket teams?
The ECB's County Grants Fund (£1,000 to £15,000, rising to £50,000 for larger facilities projects) and Building Belonging in Cricket Fund both carry an explicit priority for women's and girls' cricket. The Metro Bank Girls in Cricket Fund, run with the ECB since 2024, specifically backs clubs growing girls' participation and reports a 32% rise in girls' cricket teams since launch, and the Sport England Movement Fund lists girls aged 5 to 16 among its priority groups.
How much does it cost to sponsor a women's cricket team?
A cricket kit sponsorship for a grassroots team typically runs from £600 to £1,500. Through Kit Funder, a full eleven-player squad kit costs £992, covering shirts, whites and training wear for the season.
Why is women's cricket growing so quickly right now?
The Hundred has driven much of the growth. Its shared-billing format, one ticket covering both a men's and a women's fixture on the same night, puts the women's game in front of an audience it would not otherwise reach, and the 2026 season recorded a 7.5% rise in broadcast audience, a 36% rise in social media engagement, and a global attendance record for the women's competition. The ECB's own club-level data backs this up directly: close to 42,000 total teams competed nationally as of September 2025, with women's participation up 18% and girls' participation up 13% against the previous year.
Do grants cover the cost of a women's cricket team's kit?
No. The grants available for women's and girls' cricket are built for facilities, participation growth or a named project, not for a season's playing kit. This is the gap sponsorship fills, whether through a direct approach, a county board introduction, or a platform such as Kit Funder.
Sources
England and Wales Cricket Board, ECB sets out action to make cricket more inclusive following ICEC report, September 2023, ecb.co.uk.
England and Wales Cricket Board, ECB announces increased investment, evolved ownership model and expanded competition structure for women's professional game, 2024, ecb.co.uk.
Female Cricket, Another Huge Year for Women's Cricket as UK Attendance, Viewership, and Engagement Soars, August 2026, femalecricket.com (citing ECB reporting on broadcast audience, social media engagement and 2025 attendance figures).
Loughborough University, Cricket: The Hundred helped level the playing field, April 2026, lboro.ac.uk.
England and Wales Cricket Board, Cricket is growing and women and girls are leading the way, September 2025, ecb.co.uk.
Metro Bank, Champion of Women's and Girls' Cricket, metrobankonline.co.uk.
ICC, Historic ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 passes 125,000 attendance mark, and related tournament attendance reporting, icc-cricket.com.
Lord's Cricket Ground, Attendance records broken and history made at Lord's, 2026, lords.org.
England and Wales Cricket Board, Starting salaries equalised across men's and women's professional cricket from 2025, ecb.co.uk.
Metro Bank, Take Her Lead, ECB and Metro Bank announce partnership to invest in the people powering women's and girls' cricket, 28 July 2026, metrobankonline.co.uk.
