COVERED WINTER 2020

COVERED 34 TRENTBRIDGE.CO.UK To keep the cricketing fires burning in the strangest of summers, quick thinking and collaboration were key for the Nottinghamshire Cricket Board. Now, as the Board officially becomes part of the Club, those ties across the game are set to become stronger than ever. STORY BY Matthew Freeman STRONGER TOGETHER “The biggest positive for me is the fact that people were able to play any cricket at all.” It’s almost a throwaway comment from MandyWright, partway through our conversation about the challenges the recreational game faced in 2020, and how 2021 is shaping up. But it places everything we are discussing – from coronavirus precautions to county plans, from grants to governance – into sharp relief. Club cricket was played in 2020. Rewind to April, or even to early July as discussions between the ECB and government continued, and that was a prospect which seemed increasingly remote. It has been a year which has shown the virtues of the resilience, creativity and collaborative spirit within the cricket community. And, as the Nottinghamshire Cricket Board formally merges with Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club ahead of the 2021 season, that unity across the game will only become more evident countywide. “There have been a lot of positives to come out of this year and the time we had in lockdown,” ruminatesWright, spending a rare 2020 afternoon working from her office rather than from home. “Whenever we’ve faced a challenge, we’ve just managed to find the solution – because, for the sake of the game, we’ve had to.