Fantasy Club Cricket raises funds and spirit at cricket clubs

It was Matt Heppell who took the idea to the grassroots game, adapting it to club cricket. Fantasy Club Cricket as it is now known has become a huge success, raising funds and morale at clubs desperate for all the support they can get

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Fantasy cricket follows the beaten path of fantasy football: spend a mock budget to pick a dream team.

In fantasy formats gone by, players simply select their starting squad and, based on a matrix of performances stats, navigate their team and their points earned across a season, pitting themselves against their peers.

It was Matt Heppell who took the idea to the grassroots game, adapting it to club cricket. Fantasy Club Cricket as it is now known has become a huge success, raising funds and morale at clubs desperate for all the support they can get.

"I wanted to create something that would cater for everyone," Heppell says. "The club administrator has the power to change the look of their page and customise the website colour scheme. They can also customise the gameplay, such as when to open or close transfer windows or whether users can change their captain.

"You are also able to alter the points structure if you don’t like the default settings. You can even change it per position – for example, you might deem a player at the tail end should be worthy of two points per run where a batter should only earn one."

^{Fantasy Club Cricket brings the age-old fantasy sports format to the club cricket arena}

“The beauty of this idea is that it creates banter and talking points in the bar after games because suddenly you have people in the 1st XI taking an interest in how players in the 4th XI did that weekend. It really helps bring a club together."

Once clubs have set up their league, everything else is taken care of. Fantasy Club Cricket seamlessly integrates with Play-Cricket, extracting player profiles and scorecards and updating the fantasy leagues overnight. Once a league is up and running, the points update themselves week on week.

Heppell identifies two main benefits of Fantasy Club Cricket.

"The first is the team spirit building, bringing clubs closer together by creating talking points and shared interests. The second is the fundraising. Clubs can charge however much they want for each person to enter, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility to have 50 teams enter a league. If they have all paid £10 that’s £500 for your club.

"Whilst I don’t have the exact figures to hand, I'm confident that we've helped clubs raise well over £100,000 over the years and am proud that this has put significant money into club cricket all around the UK which can be used on facilities or youth cricket. And it’s not just a one-off fundraiser – its revenue that can be generated year after year."

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