The ECB’s Raising The Game platform exists to make the sport more inclusive - but a platform is only as powerful as the belief it builds. Ahead of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup in England & Wales, the ECB set MatchFit a clear challenge: move women, and particularly ethnically diverse audiences, from thinking cricket could be a game for them to knowing that it already is.
That meant more than a single campaign moment. It meant a strategy built to land locally, in the communities where the game is actually played, and nationally, riding the wave of the biggest stage women's cricket had arguably ever had in this country.
The insight sat in the calendar. 2026 marked 53 years since the first-ever Women's Cricket World Cup in 1973 - a milestone MatchFit turned into the creative spine of the campaign: The 53.
Rather than spotlight a handful of trailblazers, the campaign set out to normalise representation, heroing 53 women of all ages & backgrounds already shaping cricket as players, coaches, volunteers, broadcasters, administrators, etc. 53 seats at Edgbaston were turned purple in a nod to the colours of the World Cup, Raising the Game platform and in honour of the Suffragette movement. Each seat was dedicated to an individual story, transforming a symbolic number into a physical, content capture moment inside the historic stadium during the World Cup itself.
From there, MatchFit built a content-first campaign around three stages: a hero moment to launch the idea, individual storytelling to sustain it, and a long-tail amplification plan to keep it travelling. That included a hero launch video, a launch release, 15 hosted media interviews, a bespoke toolkit for the wider cricket network, a suite of visual launch assets, and a dedicated ECB landing page. ECB spokespeople including the Head of Strategic Growth, Gemma Barton, anchored the media narrative, while a paid content creator partnership with Priscilla Anyabu carried the message directly to female audiences on social - 8 of the 53 featured across 4 pieces of hero content, reaching an audience that was 81% female and 63% aged 18–34.
The story was sweated hard across four key touchpoints: an Edgbaston content and media day, a national campaign launch day, ongoing profiling of the 53 throughout the tournament, and sustained broadcast partner engagement. Momentum then carried into owned channels - ECB and England Cricket socials, the Raising The Game Bulletin and Cricket Collective CRM, internal comms and key opinion formers - before the 53 themselves shared it on social, turning the campaign into something the cricket community told for itself.
The 53 didn't just land, it moved the needle on the exact perception it was built to shift.
Among all respondents, the number who said cricket feels welcoming and inclusive to women like them rose from 41% to 64%; among ethnically diverse respondents, it climbed from 56% to 72%.
Belief that cricket is a sport where women can have a meaningful role rose 27 points, and 18% more women said they could see themselves getting involved in cricket, whether that's playing, working or volunteering, after seeing the campaign.
Across earned, owned, shared and paid channels, the campaign generated 192 pieces of coverage, achieved 100% key message inclusion, and drove 43 of the 53 to attend fixtures in person during the World Cup. 393,000 viewers tuned into the tournament's opening game, which showcased the purple seats and the campaign on broadcast, while the Raising The Game Bulletin recorded a 48% open rate as the story reached deep into the cricket network.
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