Tower Hamlets is breaking new ground as cricket reaches its east London base

Towers Hamlets in East London is one of the most densely populated boroughs in England. It is also one of the most socially deprived areas; more than a third of its 320,000 residents are the British Bangladeshi community who first moved to the area in the 1970s.

Last week, that community, and the area as a whole, was presented with a piece of sports infrastructure that had been in the works for decades. An eight-lane cricket square – unveiled by Mayor Lutfur Rahman at the east end of London's historic Victoria Park and ready for use in June – is the first artificial turf pitch ever installed in the borough.

With the exception of its neighbour, the City of London, Tower Hamlets is believed to be the last borough in the whole of England to gain access to such a facility. There are three Non-Turf Pitches (NTPs) at Victoria Park: weathered strips of asphalt and synthetic carpet that are in almost permanent use throughout the summer months and, as often as not, out of season too, with the sharpest players not afraid to dodge past football goalposts to find their solution where possible.

But there has never been such an investment in the municipality. The new home of Tower Hamlets CC will be a publicly accessible facility, comprising a composite outfield, permanent sight screens and even landscaped grass mounds to frame the outfield, encouraging spectators to gather and passersby to appreciate the sanctity of what is intended to respect. to be more than just a shared plot of land in one of London's most popular parks.

“The latent interest in cricket in this district is unprecedented, but there is a serious shortage of facilities and traditionally operating cricket clubs,” says Josh Knappett, Facilities and Project Lead at Middlesex Cricket in the Community, whose community outreach program is a key driver of this initiative. “This has been a major project that has taken a long time to get here, and we are very excited. This is a site that will have a long-lasting impact in growing the game for men, women, boys and girls in this field area.”

Up to 150,000 people in the borough are expected to be plowed into cricket over the next two years by Towers Hamlets Council and its partners including the ECB, Middlesex Cricket in the Community and the London Cricket Trust. That money will go towards projects including the renovation and expansion of the council's existing NTPs, as well as a new set of weatherproof nets at Stepney Green Park in Bow.

However, there is an undercurrent of controversy associated with the project. Mayor Rahman, who made the first impression at the opening ceremony on Wednesday, is currently facing government intervention in what will be the situation Guardian recently described as having a “toxic and secretive” decision-making culture, having previously been banned from public office for five years after being found guilty of election fraud in 2015.

Nevertheless, Rahman was returned to power in 2022 thanks to his support from within the Bangladeshi community, and regardless of any wider concerns about his management style, there appears to be a broad local consensus that this investment in the council's cricketers is as vital as it is because it's too late.

“The club has needed a ground since the day it was founded,” Shahidul Alam Ratan, a founding member of Tower Hamlets CC and CEO of the Capital Kids Cricket charity, told ESPNcricinfo. 'We campaigned from day one, but there was no movement because the council was completely focused on football. But in the past two decades, cricket has become the most popular sport in Bangladesh, and interest is starting to shift. [in East London].”

Through Capital Kids Cricket, founded in 1989 and with whom Middlesex recently entered into a two-year schools partnership, Ratan has become an important part of the area's cricket story. In 2019 he oversaw a Guinness World Record for the largest cricket lesson in a single location when dozens of local primary schools were invited to Hackney Marshes on the eve of the ODI World Cup. And in 2020 the Kia Oval was named after him for 24 hours in recognition of his efforts to keep children active during lockdown.

However, he is now hopeful that this right investment in Tower Hamlets can unlock the full potential of cricket in East London, not least thanks to the full application of Clubmark accredited status, which provides the kind of safeguards that cannot be replicated. by other, more ad hoc teams in the area.

“A lot of people play cricket in Victoria Park in the summer, but we don't have such a safe environment for young people, or for women and girls to come and play,” says Ratan. “If as a club and as a local authority we can provide a controlled zone and a safe space it will be a game-changer for the local community.”

The growth in the popularity of cricket in Tower Hamlets was not just limited to the Bangladeshi community. The Victoria Park Community Cricket League (VPCCL) takes place at the existing NTPs and hosts a hugely diverse range of teams, including in the emerging women's league, while the thriving North-East London Cricket League (NELCL) takes place at weekends. over the council-maintained lawns of neighboring Hackney, albeit with minimal supervision at provincial or ECB level.

But with the ECB recognizing that between 30 and 40% of recreational cricketers in Britain are South Asian, there is no denying the extent to which the Bangladeshi community is Tower Hamlets' driving force. Furthermore, harnessing that potential is recognized as a vital means for English cricket to address the many criticisms highlighted in last year's damning report from the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC).

One of the longest-standing complaints is that it is notoriously difficult for ethnic minority players to break through the provincial age groups, with British Asians representing just 5% of cricketers at the top level of the men's game. And while none of the local participants have progressed to professional level, Ratan estimates that around 30 former Tower Hamlets players have already established coaching careers within cricket. They include Shakeel Ahmed, who spent five years at Middlesex before returning as development manager at Capital Kids Cricket, and Tanvir Ahamed, who was named Middlesex's coach of the year in 2022.

“As far as I know there are not many clubs in Middlesex, or probably even nationally, that have had the same level of involvement in ongoing careers within cricket,” says Knappett. “They have a phenomenal track record of players coming through, then staying within the game and continuing to give back to their local community.”

As for the wider interest in the sport, that was made abundantly clear two summers ago, when neighbors Essex hosted three ODIs between Bangladesh and Ireland in Chelmsford – half an hour's drive on the A12 bordering Victoria Park – and were inundated with the most passionate support imaginable in a seemingly neutral location.

Nevertheless, it is still too early to fully realize East London's potential. Until now, the region's most talented players have relied almost exclusively on luck to get noticed, and even then – as was the case for Jahid Ahmed from Essex, a graduate of the University of East London and the first British Bangladeshi to play county cricket played – was not enough to realize their potential. Jahid's exposure of the racist abuse he suffered between 2005 and 2009 was a key factor in the Essex is fined 100,000 by the Cricket Discipline Commission earlier this year, the culmination of a lengthy independent investigation.

Middlesex's own shortcomings have avoided much the same level of scrutiny, although the… gauche comments from their former chairman Mike O'Farrell appeared to embody county cricket's long-standing inability to meet the needs of the game's marginalized communities at the 2022 DCMS hearings. However, in the wake of the ICEC report, there has been a renewed push for collaboration – not least when it comes to the invisible border of Essex and Middlesex, which sits almost directly behind the eastern boundary of Tower's new playing field Hamlets runs.

As Ratan acknowledges, this historical divide has been “a bit challenging” when it comes to delivering cricket in the green spaces of east London, with parts of Hackney Marshes and the Olympic Park falling under Essex jurisdiction. However, the relationship between these two traditional counties will become increasingly important to the London cricket community in the coming years, especially now that Essex has been chosen ahead of Middlesex as the region's Tier 1 representative in the new Women's County competition from 2025.

“It is clear that we are still aiming for Tier 1 status in 2029,” says Knappett. “But ultimately it is irrelevant whether players progress on the Middlesex side or the Essex side because what is good for those girls is something we are happy to support. It is about ensuring that the game can thrive and that talented players are given the optimal facilities to be professional cricketers.”

It may take a few years before this investment comes to fruition, but for the first time in a long time, Tower Hamlets is receiving the recognition that the enthusiasm has long been calling for.