Birmingham Phoenix celebrated the conclusion of the Ramadan Midnight Cricket League with Jacob Bethell and The Hundred trophy attending finals night in the Edgbaston Cricket Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Birmingham Phoenix celebrated the conclusion of the Ramadan Midnight Cricket League with Jacob Bethell and The Hundred trophy attending finals night in the Edgbaston Cricket Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With sessions run over three weeks until Eid al-Fitr, the Ramadan Midnight Cricket League was developed through the Warwickshire Cricket Board’s (WCB) Chance to Shine Street Programme in 2021 with free sessions for 16\u201324-year-olds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bethell, who held a Q&A and offered a masterclass, assisted with the umpiring and scoring as four local teams battled it out for the right to call themselves champions in the early morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The six-a-side games, played with a taped tennis ball, are a clear reminder that cricket is for everyone and for Bethell, himself, a throwback to his humble beginnings in Barbados.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is more than I was expecting that\u2019s for sure,\u201d said the talented all-rounder. \u201cAt 11pm on a Wednesday, these guys are playing life and death cricket and it looks like they\u2019re having fun doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy cricketing roots are from taped ball cricket, but in just a slightly different setting of a beach in Barbados. Those games, like this, start with just a bat, ball, and a couple of sticks and turn into 40-50-person games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn that environment, you learn skills which can\u2019t be coached and I wouldn\u2019t be here without that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All four teams were given the chance to have photos with both Jacob and The Hundred trophy, with a chosen few able to bat and bowl to the former England Under-19 star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis was set up to help the Chance to Shine projects for people during Ramadan who struggle to participate in cricket,\u201d said Mohammed Arif, Warwickshire Cricket Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you love cricket, like we all do, you\u2019ll find a way to play the game at a time that suits you. Our motto \u2018cricket without limits\u2019 is clearly on show here, because we\u2019re giving lads the opportunity to play after their prayers or when they\u2019ve broken fast with families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSome of the lads here have aspirations to be like Jacob so it\u2019s fantastic to welcome him. To hear his story of how he started, similar circumstances to this, is inspiring and hopefully when they see him play for Birmingham Phoenix it\u2019s going to be amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a record year in 2023, The Hundred will return to Birmingham in 2024, delivering a month of world-class cricket and blockbuster entertainment for all the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Birmingham will host its first game on Saturday 3 August, with both the Phoenix men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams kicking off their competition against Southern Brave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Phoenix will then be back at home for the first of three more double-headers on Tuesday 6 August, taking on Northern Superchargers, before their final two matchdays, on Monday 12 August against Trent Rockets and Thursday 15 August versus Manchester Originals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can\u2019t wait to meet the new lads and in particular Naseem Shah, who hit me quite hard previously,\u201d Bethell joked. \u201cThere\u2019s no bad blood, but I\u2019d much rather him be on my team!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m still a young pup in the ranks, but I\u2019m massively excited to play for Birmingham Phoenix at my home ground.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Hundred\u2019s priority window is now open until Tuesday 23rd<\/sup> April. Sign up to thehundred.com for early access to early bird prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Birmingham Phoenix celebrated the conclusion of the Ramadan Midnight Cricket League with Jacob Bethell and The Hundred trophy attending finals night in the Edgbaston Cricket Centre. Birmingham Phoenix celebrated the conclusion of the Ramadan Midnight Cricket League with Jacob Bethell and The Hundred trophy attending finals night in the Edgbaston Cricket Centre. With sessions run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,3,27,283],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","category-sport","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66494,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66492\/revisions\/66494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}