Pathway Player Progression

Buckinghamshire is one of the 20 ‘National County’ Cricket Boards in England & Wales.

There are 18 Professional Men’s counties (often called ‘first-class’ counties) and 8 of these (rising to 10 by 2027) have Professional ‘Tier 1’ Women’s teams.

Bucks Cricket has a consistent track record of developing players that progress through our Pathway and onto Professional Academies, and into careers in the game.

We have two Professional County partners:

• Men/Boys: Northants CCC
• Women/Girls: Hampshire CCC/Vipers

Our Performance/Pathway staff also work with other professional counties to provide the next step towards playing cricket professionally where it is right for the individual. Where parents and players are ambitious for the opportunity to progress into professional cricket, we urge them to work with our Head of Performance and Player Pathway Manager to identify the next steps, at the right time in the right way.

The formalised routes for Bucks Cricket pathway players to progress onto Professional Academies are through our Performance Programmes:

• Boys Emerging Players Programme (EPP, aged U15-18) and the Introductory Performance Programme (IPP – players aged U14-16)
• Women & Girls Performance Programme (WGPP, aged U15 to Women’s team players) and the Introductory Performance Programme (IPP – players aged U13-15)

These programmes link directly into our Professional Academy partners.

Prior to signing onto a Professional Academy, there are no material differences in the programmes provided by ‘National Counties’ and ‘Professional Counties’. For Boys (U14, U16, U18) and Girls (U15, U18) there are ECB competitions that involve all the counties.

Often it is more beneficial for a player to come through a National County pathway. This is because of the opportunity to play for 2 counties (1 professional, 1 national county) when having signed on for a professional county academy or full-time contract – this enables them to get the ‘best-of-both’ fixture programmes. For example, in 2023, Saif Zaib (Northants CCC professional) played for Bucks Men in the National Counties (NCCA) T20 and Ella Claridge (The Blaze professional) played for Bucks Women in the Vipers Cup.

For players of high potential at U18 who have not progressed into the pro game, they will progress into Bucks Men’s and Women’s teams. Later developers can use performances for these teams to showcase their ability and still progress into professional county teams.

Current professional players from Bucks who have come through the Bucks Cricket Pathway:

Men: Alex Hales (Notts),Tom Helm (Middlesex),Saif Zaib (Northants),Dom Goodman (Gloucs),Raphael Weatherall (Northants),Aadi Sharma (Northants)

Women: Ella Claridge (Blaze),Bethan Miles (Surrey)

In 2025, Bucks Cricket have 4 boys currently signed on the Northants CCC Academy and 4 girls selected onto on the Hampshire Vipers regional EPP.