ICEC report: Ebony Rainford-Brent says cricket can become UK's most inclusive sport

Ebony Rainford-Brent was the first black woman to play cricket for England and is now a presenter and pundit for BBC Sport. She founded the African-Caribbean Engagement Programme, which creates opportunities for young cricketers from Black communities. She sits on the board of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).

An exciting and transformational time lies ahead for cricket.

A number of challenges have been highlighted by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket's (ICEC) report and it feels like a major turning point for the game. The ambition to become one of our country's most inclusive sports is one that sits close to my heart, and I believe is achievable.

Clearly there is work to do across the areas of race, class and gender. The game has already begun the journey and the ICEC report will accelerate meaningful change.

This is the part that really interests me. From my experience over the many years of being involved in the game, I have observed and experienced first hand a number of the challenges that exist. However, I have also witnessed how barriers can be tackled and broken down. I am someone who wants to get to tangible actions and impact.

This journey is not just exciting for cricket, but also other sports that experience similar challenges. If cricket can get the next phase right, it can be a forerunner for how a sport can make a shift towards being more inclusive.

I set up the ACE Programme because I felt more needed to be done for cricket in the Black-British community.

When we started, we looked at the data across the country, from grassroots cricket up to performance level, and could see that numbers were dismal. Bar a small bubble in London, Black-British participation was close to dying out.

There was a pervading narrative that children were only interested in football, that cricket was not on their radar. We found the opposite. The interest in cricket was there, but the opportunity to access it was very low.

We worked hard, drilling down to identify the communities where we most needed to be. Three years on, 78% of the schools we go to have never had cricket before, while 87% of the children at our community hubs had no access to cricket outside of ACE.

As soon as we made cricket attractive and accessible, we found there was a huge interest in the game. Once we established trust, results began to flow. Right now, we have engaged more than 20,000 children and we want to get that to more than 100,000 to get closer to being representative of the population.

We have also been excited by our transition rates into the next level of the game. One in five of the ACE academy scholars are making it into a county pathway. We adopted an open trial process, and anyone who wants to show what they can do can ring us up or send us a video.

Our coaches look everywhere. One coach even spotted a child across a car park and spoke to their parent because he thought they looked sporty. They had never hit a cricket ball before, but is now in the talent pathway.

Up until now we have received some funding from the ECB, but earlier this month that went further when we were announced as one of five organisations that have become charity partners with the governing body.

This means we have security for the immediate future, allowing us to build on our investment from Sport England and put a clear strategy together with the wider game. We can get on the road to achieving what representation in the game should look like.

Many of the conversations had previously focused around race and gender. I am pleased to see the ICEC strongly highlight class as an area for investment and focus.

Our work at the ACE programme works with underrepresented young people in lower socioeconomic communities. I have previously voiced that the challenge for many underrepresented groups, including those from white working-class backgrounds, is access.

Research (and my own personal experience) suggests biases become more visible the further your progress in the game. Even without a deep dive into numbers and data, we can see this with our own eyes. Squads at domestic and international level, coaching teams and executive boards are not representative of the society we live in.

Therefore, a secondary target of ACE is to build pipelines for routes into coaching, management, media and leadership. It is not an immediate goal for the programme, but is certainly a long-term target.

Through all of this pain and reflection the game has gone through, a common question is "what does progress look like"? It is right to ask. How will we know if we have done a good job, and when?

On a basic level, it is through representation. If we look at the population, we know roughly how minority communities should be reflected on the field and in the boardroom. It is important to capture the data and hard numbers.

More nuanced is charting the experiences of people within the game. It is all very well saying you have invited someone to lunch, but if you then do not make them feel welcome, you have done more harm than good.

We need to monitor experiences over time, ask questions and be prepared for honest answers. The same goes for the processes in place for calling out bad experiences. If, in five years, someone needs to call out a problem and feels supported, heard and cared for, then we know the game has progressed.

One thing we at ACE will have little control over is representation at the elite playing level of the game.

Our focus is to develop grassroots participation and support the transition into talent pathways up to representation age. It requires a joint effort with the many stakeholders. We are working in partnership with six counties and it is exciting to see our long-term missions are aligned.

I do believe that a 10-year target for proper representation across the game is achievable.

The leaders of the ECB have stated their aim to make cricket the most inclusive sport in the country.

That is an ambitious aim, but also an exciting one when you consider the history of the game, attitudes towards it, its traditions and challenges.

That is the mission I have signed up for and, frankly, is the only reason I agreed to join the board of the ECB.

If you make the intention, it can be achieved. I honestly believe it can be done.