The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has welcomed Surrey’s appointment of the Ashes and World Cup winner Ebony Rainford-Brent as their first director of women’s cricket.
The ECB also congratulated them on bringing fresh sponsorship into the domestic women’s game.
“I want to make sure that Surrey CCC is seen as one of the world’s leading domestic clubs when it comes to the development of women’s cricket at all levels,” said Rainford-Brent, a south Londoner who played 22 one-day internationals and seven T20s for England between 2001 and 2010 and is also a director of the England and Wales Cricket Trust.
Her appointment has been made possible by financial backing from Pemberton Greenish, a law firm who have previously sponsored the Surrey Academy.
They will now back the Surrey women’s team and also the Pemberton Greenish Cup, a local derby to be played annually between Surrey and Middlesex, and launched at the Kia Oval on Monday 18 May.
Congrats to @Ebz_1983 who has been appointed Director of Women's Cricket http://t.co/0Ln7HRozxr@SurreyLadiespic.twitter.com/G3GRdM9Fs3
— Surrey Cricket (@surreycricket) December 4, 2014
Clare Connor, the ECB’s head of women’s cricket, said: “It’s great to see Surrey showing their commitment to the women’s game in this way.
"Ebony has played the game at every level, and has gained a breadth of experience working with Chance to Shine and the Taverners, all of which will set her up brilliantly to take on this role.
"I’m also delighted to see that Surrey have attracted a stand-alone commercial partner to their women’s programme.
“In addition to the strides taken by the England women’s team in recent years, we have also seen enormous growth in the number of girls playing the game and the collective focus now must be on making the domestic game for women and girls as robust and attractive as possible.
"I am sure other clubs will look at this initiative by Surrey as something they might wish to emulate.”
Richard Thompson, the Surrey chairman, added: “It gives me great pride that Surrey are now able to appoint a director of women’s cricket and it is only appropriate that someone such as Ebony – who has been involved at the club since she was a teenager – should fulfil that role.
“In the past 169 years, many men have taken honour in describing themselves as Surrey cricketers.
"In the 21st century and beyond, I look forward to many great female cricketers joining them as they create their own place in our club’s fantastic history.”