Pathway Nomination Process

The nominations window is now open and will remain open until Thursday 6^th July 2023. Bucks clubs should have received an email detailing how to nominate players, if your club has not received this please contact admin@buckscricket.co.uk. Clubs are to submit nominations and parents to complete the corresponding questionnaire by 6th July as booking links will be sent out on 7^th July.

Existing County Pathway Players do NOT need to be re-nominated. To see a list of existing county players please click here

• All nominees for Boys U11-13 & Girls U11-18 will be invited to a Nomination Training Day in August for our County Coaches to assess.
• For Boys nominated to U14+ we will request play cricket stats and video footage to review nominations before deciding whether to invite them to a trial session.
• This year Bucks Cricket will be covering the cost of these sessions, providing them free to players.

Eligibility for nominees is to play at a Bucks Club (primary affiliated with Bucks Cricket). If the nominee does not play for a Bucks Club but lives in Bucks then they can complete the nomination form and will be contacted to inform them whether it has been accepted. If invited to winter training, the child must not be involved in a pathway with any other County.

The Bucks Pathway starts at U11 (not U10) – this is their age group for 2024. Therefore, nominations start for this current years U10’s (born before September 2013, Year 5 or above in this current school year) to go into 2024’s U11s. Only exceptional U9 Boys to be nominated and these will be double-checked if submitted. For the Girl’s pathway we will be more lenient with Nominations for U9’s, we would like to see more nominations from clubs if the player is suitable, following the player criteria.

Nominees must meet the player criteria below for their age group.

Criteria for Boys & Girls U11-13:

1. Has Hard Ball experience OR confident that the player has shown enough to suggest hard ball transition will be comfortable
2. Loves the game and will commit to attending pathway activity to improve skills.
3. Willing to learn and accepts failure.
4. Open to bowling, fielding & batting in different positions.

In 2023 we expanded the Boys U11-13 Pathway to four ‘regions’ with 60 places available at each age group. Read more about our Pathway Structurehere.

Please nominate players & encourage parents to register their children even if they have missed out on selection in previous years as players develop at very different rates and this development will naturally ebb & flow through the years.

Criteria for Boys & Girls U14-18:

Read more about our Pathway Selection Framework here.

For Boys U14+ nominations, once we have collated all nominations we will be asking parents to submit video for us to review alongside the stats. More information on how to send through the videos will be communicated to them in due course. In the meantime it’s worth being aware that they will need to collate video following the guidance below:

1. Bowling: 4 balls - 2 captured from behind the run-up and 2 from side-on to the crease (so badges on a playing/training shirt are showing to the camera at the crease) showing final 3rd of the run up and ball bowled.
2. Batting: 3 straight balls faced full on the stumps showing attacking intent. Facing Pace Bowling. Nets better from umpires position to capture setup etc and to have clearer image quality.
3. If the player is a wicket-keeper: 3 deliveries on the off side and 3 deliveries down the leg side. Filmed from the umpires position.

Pathway Player Progression

We know that some players nominated will have future aspirations of being a Professional Cricketer. Please share this page of our website with parents so they can understand how the pathway works seamlessly through to pro cricket and that it is not a disadvantage at all to be from a County where the Men’s 1^st XI plays in the National Counties competition rather than First-Class County: Pathway Player Progression