2024 has seen us move towards supporting both the boys and girl’s pathway in similar fashion, with tier 2 status comes the ability to appoint a designated lead and support staff for the girl’s pathway and senior side. Tier 2 status represents an exciting time for the girl’s pathway, for the first time Worcestershire will have a head of women’s and girl’s cricket (ed wilson) with the opportunity to deliver an outstanding experience. This will build on the excellent work done since WCCC took over the responsibilities of running the girl’s pathway in 2019.
In November 2025 the game is expected to roll out an improved offer in the foundation phase of the pathway (u10-u13), we have developed our pathway in this space over the last five years with a greater focus over the last two years. We are running a pathway (boys) which represents our community, supports large numbers, provides equal access to development opportunities and allowing players to reach their full potential in cricket. It is pleasing to see the efforts in this space seeing a 60% representation from state schools and a 32% representation from diverse communities.
2025 has seen players from the pathway participate at regional and national level, we have seen Jeet Varaich, Lucian Brockman, Alfie Higgins and joe porter play at the Bunbury U15 festival whilst Toby Cox, Seth Essenhigh and Jack Home played at the prestigious super 4s festival. At the end of the summer Seth Essenhigh was a member of the England U19s for the tri series vs Ireland and Scotland u19s played at Loughborough. Jack home went on to be selected for the young lions and England U19s over the winter of 24/25, jack recently returned following a successful winter to continue his development in his first full year with the club.
The under 18s played some outstanding cricket in 2025 with a young group with an average age of 16. The performances of Seth Essenhigh (U16) in white ball cricket were eye catching in their bravery, execution and intelligence, Seth went on to play several 2XI games in 2024. The batting performances of Dan Lategan were outstanding in red ball cricket being one of the competitions leading run scorers, his twin hundreds away at somerset were impressive in their powers of concentration and patience. To see Toby Cox and Alfie Higgins score 100s in U18 cricket is impressive, to bat for over 7 hours versus Gloucestershire was an amazing example of concentration and patience plus for an U15 to score a 100 versus Northamptonshire at Bromsgrove School is exciting for the future. The highlight of the year was our efforts versus Wales at Panteg CC, to bat for 116 overs to save a game is a mammoth effort by any side but by a group so young was impressive cricket and by far the most impressive in recent times.
It was pleasing to offer WCCC academy places for 2025 to Henry Hawes, Jeet Varaich and Lucian Brockman, recently the club added Ben Jones from Kidderminster CC to the academy group. There is an exciting group of fast bowlers coming together and we look forward to seeing their evolution in 2025 alongside the rest of the pathway.
Elliot Wilson
Academy Director
Worcestershire CCC