PLAY-CRICKET UPDATE

Date: 20th February 2013

A brief guide to the ECB's plans for www.play-cricket.com

Have a look at:

http://www.play-cricket.com/content/view.asp?id=10396450&cid=200

Play-Cricket update

What is Play-Cricket?
Play-Cricket is the ECB’s online cricket network for all Clubs, Leagues, Cup Competitions and County Boards. It is the official source of information and statistics on club cricket for all cricketers and supporters. The system provides the grassroots game with purpose-built cricket software to enable clubs and leagues to publish their own information on their own websites. The system is free to all ECB affiliated clubs and leagues and is designed to be as user-friendly as possible.

Why is ECB investing in a major upgradeof Play-Cricket?
Play-Cricket is more than ten years old. It is an invaluable resource for the recreational game, provides a wealth of information and currently has 250,000 registered users. ECB recognises the need to invest in the technology, functionality and user interface of Play-Cricket to make it competitive in the fast-changing online marketplace, and has canvassed opinion from a wide range of Play-Cricket user groups to fully understand the requirements.

What will the proposed upgrade actually entail?
ECB will make a significant investment into improving the site’s functionality and introducing new components such as social media, video and compatibility with third-party live scoring services. Ensuring the site is user-friendly and simple to use is a top priority for the development team with a focus on improvements to the administration system; as is giving administrators control over their own site’s look and feel within a suite of design templates.

When will the new features be rolled out?
The Play-Cricket project team is managing the development of a pilot version of the new site through winter 2012-13 – so that this can be rolled out to a limited test group for use during the 2013 summer season.

So when will the new redesigned site go live for the first time?
At this stage, the project development team are working towards a launch date over the 2013-2014 close season. This will be finalised after an extensive programme of testing and consultation with all our key stakeholders within the recreational game.

Will users need to change their passwords and log-ins to access the new site?
ECB will keep all existing users aware of new developments in advance of their launch dates. Any administrative changes will be communicated via email to all registered users, plus online tutorials and help available via Play-Cricket itself.

What does this mean for users?
Play-Cricket will continue to deliver the features that it currently provides to clubs and leagues, retaining all of the records and statistics already recorded in Play-Cricket. In addition, users will see a much more engaging site which clubs can individualise and use to showcase their facilities and cricket communities. Administrators will start to see the simplification of some administrative tasks involved with the day to day running of the clubs and leagues, as the ECB seeks to use the Play-Cricket Platform to relieve some of the administrative burden of operating a cricket club.

Feedback
Any questions or feedback should initially be channelled via your play-cricket site administrators to the Administrators Forum, where a section has been set up specifically for this purpose. The forum can be accessed from the bottom item of the menu on every sub-site administration homepage.