In early August, the UK was reeling from a spate of devastating race-related riots. The material damage to businesses and property was widespread. But the trail of destruction went much deeper, tearing at the fabric of the nation itself.

As the carnage raged, propelled by rampant online misinformation, four Chance to Shine (CTS) Street cricket clubs in urban areas were forced to cancel training sessions due to safety concerns for the children involved. These kids, many of them people of colour, had been wrenched away from the game by the spectre of violence.

The horrors formed a grim backdrop to CTS’s subsequent Street Cricket Finals, which went ahead at Nottingham University at the end of August, the competition comprising 17 teams from some of the most deprived areas of England. Street Cricket is a six-a-side format, played with a tape-ball (a tennis ball wrapped in electric tape). It is stripped back to the extent that participants only need a bat, a ball and a set of stumps to play. The idea behind the format is to ensure maximum inclusivity, with the event providing a hub for the UK’s subcontinent diaspora to come together.

“Cricket can help people, not just to enjoy a new sport, but to develop personally, to become leaders, to become closer to their community [and] to develop as a whole,” Ross Jeavons, CTS director of communications, tells WCM. “When you get immersed in our world and you see the impact it has on young people, it transforms your passion for cricket to a different level.”

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“I love to play, and my friends are here. My love is cricket.” So says one 18-year-old Street cricketer who grew up in war-torn Afghanistan and is one of a number of young Afghans taking part in the event. His support worker has asked for him not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the current climate.

Chance to Shine’s array of Street Cricket clubs provide migrants and refugees with opportunities not only to hone their skills but to forge friendships, integrate and learn English. “We are all together,” one of his teammates tells us. “We’re talking. That’s why I love it.”

One of Chance to Shine’s more recent Street clubs was formed by Staffordshire County Council’s ‘Amity Hub’, which looks after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Georgia Houghton-Howell helps run the Amity Hub programme and said a “shared love of cricket” catalysed the team’s formation.

“It teaches them so many social skills. It’s a great place for them to bring any emotional [problems], put it to one side or let that frustration out in a healthy way,” says Houghton-Howell.

“Everyone deserves to be happy. Everyone deserves to have a future. They’ve got no future [in Afghanistan]. They’ve come here for a better life, but how many people are willing to guide them, have that patience to help them learn vastly different cultures, different religions? These are children, and they need someone.”

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At Essex CCC, their mantra is a simple one. If somebody wants to pick up a bat and ball, it’s their responsibility to make it happen. Graham Pryke, cricket development manager at Essex, has spent 17 years working with clubs and leagues in the county and has seen the mutual benefits of refugees and migrants getting involved in club cricket.

Between 2019 and 2021, the number of adult recreational games saw a 10 per cent increase, with roughly 10,000 more fixtures played in the summer of 2021 compared to 2019. According to Pryke, much of this growth is down to the enthusiasm of South Asians who “bring cricket” to a point where demand is sometimes greater than pitches available.

One of Pryke’s roles is to get refugees into local clubs, though it can be tough for clubs to see them go when their living circumstances
change and they are rehoused elsewhere in the country. “I can think of one lad in particular who had to move on,” explains Pryke. “The club had grown to like this guy; he scored a century and other runs as well. There were quite a few tears when they were told he was leaving for Bristol.”

Ian Gray, youth engagement officer at Essex, tends to work with younger refugees housed in hotels in the area. One group of refugees “were desperate to play hard-ball cricket,” he says. “They wanted to be hitting the hard ball, sometimes not even bothering to wear pads, gloves and boxes.” Essex CCC provided kit and funding for indoor sessions and soon a refugee team was formed and playing fixtures against local clubs.

“We just wanted to give them an opportunity to be physically active and so they’ve got some sense of normality in what’s a very tumultuous time for them,” says Gray.

In collaboration with Chance to Shine, Gray has helped facilitate cricket at the former RAF base in Wethersfield, Braintree, where a number of the 900 refugees currently being accommodated were given a series of free, indoor tape-ball sessions. Gray then arranged for a suitable astro-turf pitch and sourced some kit via the Lord’s Taverners charity to get them playing outdoors.

With an equivalent scheme up and running at two army barracks in Shropshire and another in the works at a base in Staffordshire – all of them housing hundreds of Afghan youths – CTS’s Jeavons is optimistic these pilot programmes can be adopted further afield: “Our goal is to demonstrate a significant impact and explore ways we can potentially expand this offering.

Our priority is always young people who lack opportunities to play cricket, but of course any expansion requires more funding.” It’s a county-wide endeavour. Over in East London, Arfan Akram, Essex’s head of player liaison, oversees and supports cricket for refugees by pitching new programmes to charities to gain funding, and by finding clubs for refugees to join.

“All of a sudden,” he says, “these quiet, shy, very scared people, [whose] journey in life has been horrific, just smile. They’re buzzing, they’re happy. For that hour they’ve gone away from all their concerns and their worries.”

Antonia Cohen has worked with young refugees for over a decade. She formerly volunteered at the Refugee Council in Croydon, South London, and now coordinates cricket sessions for the Surrey Eagles, under the auspices of the Surrey Cricket Foundation. She has seen the impact the game can have.

“Cricket is very representative of life,” she says. “There are consequences to where you place your fielder, you leave a gap somewhere else. So that mirrors life, in a sense that you can’t do everything, and you’ve got to accept that you can’t always make the right decision. Sometimes it’s luck, sometimes it’s good judgement, but you can’t beat yourself up. It’s incredibly useful to very under-parented young refugees to get that sort of experience on a cricket pitch.”

Cohen explains that for refugees seeking asylum, getting involved in cricket can also be helpful in support of their applications. Playing for a team opens up an opportunity for a young refugee to make an impression on people who may subsequently be prepared to vouch for their character.

“When it comes to an appeal hearing, for example, a good character reference from someone who sees the young person week in and week out can make a positive impact on a decision-maker and their view on the young person’s credibility.”

Just north of Croydon, another programme asserts cricket’s value. The Dulwich CC Snow Leopards are made up of 35 refugees and migrants, mostly from Afghanistan. Fifteen of the Snow Leopards play across the third XI down to the fifth XI, with the rest turning out as their own team, which has played in friendlies since forming in 2022.

Dulwich CC ensures participants have all costs covered, from kit, to training, to match fees. “If we don’t do every [element] of the project it doesn’t work, it’s all connected” says Assan Crawford-Khan, the mastermind behind the scheme, which costs between £8,000 and £10,000 annually, and received £5,000 from the Surrey Cricket Foundation in 2022.

Crawford-Khan, known as ‘Zaki’, grew up in Hazara Town in Pakistan, close to the Afghanistan border, playing cricket in the streets. He moved to the UK in 2004 aged 21 and initially struggled to integrate at Canterbury CC, before he moved to Dulwich in 2010.

“In Pakistan we used to have one bat for a team, we didn’t have the concept of having an institutionalised cricket game. I saw [people] in a similar position to what I was, so that inspired me to start the project.” Abdullah and Ahmad Miakhail are cousins from Afghanistan who play for the Snow Leopards. Abdullah has vastly improved his social and language skills because of the programme.

Now, he helps younger Afghans to communicate in English, to help their integration. Ahmad said the programme was “an amazing opportunity” to play higher level cricket. This summer he broke into the Dulwich second team, played on the same field as Surrey batter Ollie Sykes, and took 6-15 while representing the Dulwich Academy XI against London Gymkhana.

Shabir Stanikzai, 19, is another to benefit from the programme. Stanikzai wasn’t confident with his English when he joined Dulwich but he knew he wanted to get into cricket coaching. Crawford-Khan noticed this and offered him a role. He has since started coaching four or five times a week. “It makes me happy to be there to help the young players. The kids we were coaching were very happy with me, every single day they were like: ‘Coach Shabir are you coming tomorrow?’”

Stanikzai duly picked up the ECB’s Young Coach of the Year award in 2023, forging an identity through his work with the Snow Leopards.

It can sometimes feel a little clichéd, even an overreach, to say that cricket binds communities and forges connections. But then you speak to these people doing important work in difficult and divided times, and you realise it’s no kind of stretch at all.