JUST a fortnight after announcing a ladies and girls section, Wycombe Cricket Club are pushing back the boundaries again and this time it’s disabled cricket in Bucks they are hoping to enable.

Progress has already been made with the club forming a partnership with Penn School to provide the pupils with weekly coaching sessions, and an agreement has just been reached to offer a similar programmeto the Alfriston School in Beaconsfield – involving about 45 children.

Wycombe have also agreed to host a cricket festival for disabled cricketers at their London Road ground on July 5, bringing together more than 70 pupils from nine different schools.

Chairman Geoff Morgan said: “On the back of developing a ladies and girls secion, it was for me a case of ‘why not?’.

“Looking into it, it is desperately needed in this area so we want to progress a long-term strategy to provide a disabled section and a disabled facility.

“We’ve been in contact with the ECB and they are very keen for us to move forwards with this.”

Incredibly, Morgan’s idea really took hold following a phone call to England legend Mike Gatting.

The former England opener just happened to be standing next to Ian Martin, head of disabled cricket at ECB, and from there Morgan was put in touch with Jeff Levick.

Levick is chair of the Hampshire Cricket Board and has been heavily involved in disabled cricket for 12 years. He emphasised the lack of facilities in Bucks.

Morgan said: “The nearest facilities are 25 miles away. We will do a risk assessment but I think our ground is already disabled friendly.”

Director of cricket at the club Keith Newell is providing the coaching initially, but Wycombe plans to call on the ECB to provide specialist coaches in the future.

Morgan said: “We want to do this properly, and that means specialist coaches.

“We need to see how it develops and what sort of numbers we get, but the future is other clubs and regions coming Wycombe to play competitive fixtures of disabled cricket.”