The day the pupils became the coaches

Perspective

Cricket has always been about more than the game. At a Manchester cricket ground, a group of young women proved exactly that.

16 July 2026 | 4 minute read

It started with a role reversal.

On a morning at the Trafford Cricket Centre in Manchester, a group of pupils from Whalley Range High School were not there to be taught. They were there to teach. The adults in the room – RBC Brewin Dolphin volunteers – were put through their paces by the young people themselves, who led them through a series of activities designed to build communication, confidence and the ability to make decisions under pressure.

It was, on the face of it, a cricket day. In practice, it was something far more interesting.

Cricket as a classroom

Chance to Shine is a national charity that uses cricket to give children – particularly those in state schools and underserved communities – the chance to develop skills that go well beyond the boundary. Leadership. Resilience. The ability to back yourself in a difficult moment.

RBC Brewin Dolphin’s community leadership partnership with the charity is built on exactly that idea: that sport, at its best, is a development tool. The qualities you build on a pitch – composure, adaptability, the willingness to take on responsibility – are the same ones that serve you in every other part of life.

The partnership, which launched at Durham’s cricket ground with England cricketer Joe Root, continued that same spirit in Manchester – pupils in the lead, professionals learning. Richard Douglas, Head of Brand at RBC Brewin Dolphin, reflects on what days like this offer to everyone in the room. “You come to a day like this thinking you’re there to give something. You leave having received just as much. The confidence in that room, from pupils who arrived quietly and left leading, is exactly the kind of impact we want to have.”

A place in the game

England women’s captain Nat Sciver-Brunt was at Old Trafford that morning in her role as an RBC Wealth Management brand ambassador. One of the most complete all-rounders in the world game, she has spent more than a decade at the top of the sport.

She was there to speak with the pupils, answer their questions, and share how she leads her own team. But what stayed with her wasn’t the cricket.

“Seeing their confidence grow even over the course of a day is incredibly rewarding,” she said afterwards. “It’s about showing young people, particularly girls, that there’s a place for them in the game – whether that’s on the pitch or beyond.”

She said it from experience. When Sciver-Brunt came through, the landscape for young women in cricket looked very different. The role models were fewer, the pathways less visible. “Now there are so many more female role models out there,” she reflects . “I guess if I was 20 now, I’d have so many to choose from, and that’s really cool.”

That shift didn’t happen by chance. It happened because people invested, over many years, in making the game accessible, in creating the conditions for young people to discover whether they love it. “Cricket is a sport that’s not always accessible to everyone,” Sciver-Brunt says. “So the support of RBC to make it more accessible is so important. Cricket is a game that I love, and I think everyone deserves the opportunity to discover whether they like it too.”

Why it matters beyond the game

What the Manchester morning demonstrated is that the skills we think of as belonging to elite sport are not exclusive. They are learnable. They are teachable. And they are transferable to every room a young person will walk into.

That’s the premise of the Chance to Shine partnership. And it’s why RBC’s involvement extends beyond financial. The employees who volunteered that morning didn’t just give their time. They came back having been led, coached, and challenged by a group of teenagers who started the day a little unsure of themselves, and finished it in charge of the room.

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