England stars will be on hand to give Harborough's cricket a boost

The club will become the Midlands base for the Lydia Greenway Academy and will host seven weeks of sessions through May and June of this year.

They have also appointed England opening batsman Tammy Beaumont as an ambassador for women’s cricket at the club.

Greenway will bring her Academy to the club this summer having already established it in Kent where she played her county cricket.

The former England international – she represented her country on 225 occasions across all formats – is running seven sessions on Tuesday nights starting on May 2 and concluding on June 20.

There will be separate academies for under-11s and 11 to 18-year-olds.

She will also be bringing some of the current England team to the club to run coaching masterclasses.

Market Harborough director of cricket Rob Taylor said: “They are two big announcements for the club and we’re pleased to have both Tammy and Lydia linked to us.

“We felt we’d taken good steps with both the juniors and seniors cricket but didn’t have much on the women’s side.

“We were keen to improve on that and having both of them involved with the club will hopefully be a big boost.

“Women’s cricket is a really exciting place to be at the moment – especially with the Kia Super League starting “last year and the World Cup in England this summer – and we are keen to be a part of that.

“I met Lydia a few months ago at a coaching course and we got chatting about what I was doing at Market Harborough and what she was doing with her academy.

“She wanted to start a midlands academy to go with her one in Kent and Market Harborough is an excellent location. It is open to anyone in the midlands so we’ve got good links to a lot of counties.

“Also there aren’t many clubs with four net facilities and the amount of outfield space that we have.

“It is also great to have Tammy associated to the club. She’s had a very successful year for England and is currently playing for Adelaide in the Women’s Big Bash in Australia so is a big name in the sport.

“Both of these developments are about getting lots of girls in and playing cricket.”

For more information on the Lydia Greenway Academy visit www.cricketforgirls.com.