{"id":506784,"date":"2026-04-01T08:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T08:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/506784\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T08:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T08:54:08","slug":"ecb-accused-of-allowing-non-disabled-players-to-take-place-of-disabled-cricketers-in-top-domestic-league-disability-and-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/506784\/","title":{"rendered":"ECB accused of allowing non-disabled players to take place of disabled cricketers in top domestic league | Disability and sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

The England and Wales Cricket<\/a> Board has been accused of allowing non-disabled players to participate in its Disability Premier League, blocking the pathway to international cricket.<\/p>\n

The parents of Jai Charan and Alex Jervis \u2013 both former England internationals who have diagnosed learning disabilities \u2013 say their sons have been replaced in the DPL by players who do not meet the disability criteria under the ECB\u2019s assessment process.<\/p>\n

The DPL is intended as the top of the pathway to the England Mixed Disability team, but another parent, who requested to remain anonymous, estimates that 12 out of 64 players selected in December\u2019s draft are non-disabled.<\/p>\n

The ECB is a signatory to Virtus, the international sports federation for athletes with an intellectual impairment, meaning all cricketers wanting to play international cricket under the LD (learning disability) category must demonstrate that they have an IQ of 75 or lower.<\/p>\n

Owen Jervis, who is also the volunteer manager of Yorkshire\u2019s disability team, alleges that the ECB have allowed several neurodiverse players to participate in the DPL, despite the fact they did not meet the criteria in the LD assessment process, carried out by an educational psychologist.<\/p>\n

The majority of players with neurodiversity would not fulfil the ECB\u2019s LD eligibility requirements for disability cricket. A number of neurodiverse cricketers play professional mainstream cricket, including the England bowler Em Arlott, who was diagnosed with ADHD and autism in 2023.<\/p>\n

While the ECB is not required to adhere to Virtus regulations in the DPL as it is a domestic tournament, including non-disabled players risks undermining the purpose of the tournament. \u201cYou can\u2019t call it a Disability Premier League if the players aren\u2019t disabled,\u201d Tracey Jervis said.<\/p>\n

Another parent of a player with a learning disability says that his son has been put at a disadvantage because he plays county disability cricket, instead of mainstream (non-disabled) cricket. Many England-qualified players do not play any disability county cricket.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems the county game isn\u2019t used at all for assessing potential,\u201d he said. \u201cThe DPL is meant to be the pinnacle for England-qualified players but after five years it has the feeling of now being a closed old boys\u2019 club, with coaches and captains picking favourites rather than on form.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the move to mixed disability cricket \u2013 meaning that learning disability, physical disability and deaf players now play together in the same teams \u2013 there are also fewer opportunities available in each XI.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayers with misallocated impairment and who have no LD are being categorised as LD players and take game space away from those with a qualifying disability,\u201d Owen Jervis said. \u201cThey take the lion\u2019s share of the game in terms of bowling and batting. Many of the LD guys are left with carrying the drinks or being good in the outfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe learning disability lads, they don\u2019t know what to say. They know they can\u2019t meet that standard and they never will. So they just kind of go into themselves and say: \u2018Well, what\u2019s the point? I\u2019ll do something else.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian spoke to several other parents who felt similarly but requested their names not be included due to concerns about repercussions for their sons. \u201cYou get a feeling that the LD people are being quietly put to one side,\u201d one said.<\/p>\n

Yorkshire\u2019s disability team manager Owen Jervis said several players had not met the criteria in the ECB\u2019s learning disability assessment process. Photograph: Yorkshire County Cricket Club<\/p>\n

Owen Jervis raised the issue via email with Richard Hill, events and competition manager for disability cricket at the ECB, in September 2024. Hill \u2013 in an email seen by the Guardian \u2013 said he was \u201caware of several challenges that are presenting themselves around the emergence of players in our game with high-functioning conditions\u201d and that the ECB was developing an action plan \u201cto manage the situation\u201d. However, Owen says the situation has got worse, with more LD-classified players now excluded from the DPL.<\/p>\n

The bowler Jai Charan debuted for the England LD team in 2023 and has the best bowling average and best strike rate in the history of the DPL, which has been running since 2022. Alex Jervis has represented the England LD team for a decade and won the LD Ashes three times with England. Both were reduced to the role of drinks carrier in the 2025 DPL.<\/p>\n

Jai\u2019s father, Shanial Charan, said: \u201cThe one place where I genuinely thought that my son would not be discriminated against because of his learning disability was disability cricket.<\/p>\n

\u201cJai didn\u2019t play a single game last season, yet he went to every single game. And in the end he made his own decision. He said: \u2018Dad, I don\u2019t want to do this any more, because all I do is I come here and I sit and I run on water. But my stats say that I\u2019ve got the best bowling average and I\u2019ve got the best strike rate in the history of the DPL. How come they\u2019re not selecting me?\u2019 How do I explain that to him?\u201d<\/p>\n

An ECB spokesperson said: \u201cThe Disability Premier League provides top-level competition for 60 mixed disability players each year, all of whom have an impairment, and is driving forward the standards of disability cricket. With only 60 places available \u2013 and squads needing a mix of physical disability, learning disability and deaf players \u2013 competition is intense. We recognise there are debates around the appropriate eligibility criteria, and with the competition now five years old we are currently reviewing this with a view to any changes coming into place in 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The England and Wales Cricket Board has been accused of allowing non-disabled players to participate in its Disability…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-506784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}