New research questions inclusivity in Disability Premier League cricket

The joint research, published in a Sociology journal, undertaken by Dr James Brighton  Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology and Life Sciences, Dr Ben Powis at Bournemouth University, and Dr Robert Townsend at the University of Waikato, explored player perspectives of the newly launched Disability Premier League (DPL), a pan-disability tournament where physically disabled, learning disabled, and D/deaf athletes compete together.

Their findings highlight that whilst the DPL promotes inclusivity it actually serves to reinforce ableist expectations by discriminating in favour of the non-disabled norm. An ‘impairment blindness’ was revealed which prioritised elite sporting competition without adequately considering physical difference. Players felt pressured to meet certain physical standards, making some disabled cricketers less visible or even ignored.

Dr Brighton, co-author of the study, said: “There is a long history and politics in disability sport that aims to attempt fair and meritocratic competition, which has largely been ignored by the ECB in their attempt to create an elite disability cricket competition.

“More severely impaired cricketers or those with specific impairments risk finding themselves excluded,” he added.

In spite of warnings from Dr Powis who indicates that ‘streamlining impairment specific squads means that there will be players with certain impairments who will now be frozen out of international cricket’, the ECB plan to test the same format at international level in an upcoming England-India series.

The ECB says its aim is to encourage more countries to field disability sides, paving the way for a Disability World Cup, but former players have questioned this.

Dr Brighton meanwhile calls for the ECB to implement findings of the research to help co-produce elite disability cricket policy moving forward.

The findings were also reported in The Guardian. Dr Brighton and Dr Powis have previously worked on bringing together an edited collection of work on researching disability sport with Routledge publishers.