Why Play Cricket?
Cricket at King's has always been at the forefront of the school's culture and traditions. It currently has the status of being a Centre of Cricketing Excellence.
The school has also been awarded the status of being one of the first MCC Foundation Hubs, an initiative which will allow local young cricketers to access the brilliant coaching and facilities that King's can provide. It has been a huge success so far and continues to emphasise the school’s growing cricketing reputation.
With a long-standing relationship with Somerset County Cricket Club, King's is delighted to be renewing its partnership, along side King's College Prep.
In 2019, King’s sponsored players Eddie Byrom, Nathan Gilchrist and King’s College Prep School parent, James Hildreth. Currently we sponsor First XI players James Hildreth and Tom Banton.
Both King’s and Somerset County Cricket Club have a long tradition of sporting excellence on the field and have played a vital role in the development of young sportsmen and women in Somerset for over 100 years.
Bowled Over by Outstanding Facilities
King's boasts an amazing campus of pitches where six games can be going on at any one time, all against the backdrop of the main school buildings. The school has a number of artificial outdoor nets next to each of the pitches, and we also have an excellent indoor net training facility, including four bowling machines, perfect for our winter training schedule.
King's is also highly regarded within ECB development, thanks to the hundreds of cricketers who come down to represent their counties at the summer cricket festivals held at King's College. For more information on these events, click here.
The cricket centre boasts three lanes, long run ups and a state-of-the-art training facility for our cricketers. On top of this, the centre is also used for our sports performance and conditioning programme and various sports and activities such as fencing, dance, aerobics and pilates.
First Class Cricketers
Phil Lewis is the Director of Sport at King's, and coaches the 1st XI and our elite players. Head of Cricket, Rob Woodman (Somerset and Gloucestershire CCC) specialises in batting and fielding, and Cricket Professional, Keith Parsons (Somerset CCC) batting and wicket keeping. Both coaches help with the different facets of the game. We aim to develop players of all abilities and do so with an excellent fixture list against the leading cricket schools, counties and universities in the South West.
King's has produced numerous professional cricketers in recent years, many of whom have gone on to play for various major county sides that we have strong links with, as well as at international level. However, it is not just at the top end of the school that we are producing top players. Throughout the school there are numerous county players representing their age groups, all of whom are hoping to follow in the same footsteps as Jos Buttler and the rest of our recent professional cricketers. These also include the aforementioned Alex Barrow, as well as Craig Meschede, James Rew, Neil Brand, Charlie Morris, Tom Banton, Nathan Gilchrist and Eddie Byrom.
King's Cricketing Vision
We have two areas of focus. The first is through our EPP (Elite Player Programme), which is designed for cricketers of any age who are pushing county EPPs or academies with a view to gaining professional contracts.
The other is trying to improve any of our cricketers who simply love the game and wish to become as good as they can so that they acquire the skills, knowledge and experience to progress in to playing at as high a level of club, university or representative cricket as possible when they leave the school.
For a more in-depth look in to our cricket, Phil Lewis and some of our players featured in a Test match special last summer on the strength of school cricket at King’s. To watch the video, click here.
For fixtures, results and match reports, please click here.