The MCC University (MCCU) scheme has received a significant boost with news that a sponsor has been found to cover previous cuts in funding.
The MCC announced earlier this year that they were to cut their funding of the programme by around 50% (from over £550,000 a year to around £275,000 a year) from the start of 2017. With the ECB unwilling to make-up the shortfall, the long-term viability of the scheme had been in doubt.
But now Deloitte, the accountancy and consultancy firm, have been secured on a two-year deal. While the search for more sponsors and longer term deals goes on, the centres can expect higher levels of funding than anticipated this year and less of a shortfall than feared next.
Around 23% of current England-qualified cricketers involved in the first-class game developed in part through the MCCU scheme which has six centres in Oxford, Cambridge, Cardiff, Durham, Loughborough and Leeds-Bradford. Among the players to have graduated through the system are director of cricket for the England team, Andrew Strauss, Ireland captain William Porterfield, Surrey's Zafar Ansari, former England spinner Monty Panesar, Kent's Sam Billings and England Women's captain, Heather Knight.
Set-up by former England opener Graeme Fowler in 1996, the aim was to ensure young people did not have to choose between education and cricket. By providing them with good quality coaching and playing opportunities at the same time as allowing them to gain a further education, the scheme not only encourages some into sport who might otherwise be lost, but prepares those who do break into the professional for the life after their sporting retirement.
Fowler has long argued that the ECB have a "duty of care" to fund the scheme, suggesting it helps avoid some of the pitfalls encountered by players as they look for opportunities once their on-field careers come to an end.
"Not only does this scheme encourage more of the best and brightest players to pursue a career in the game," Fowler told ESPNcricinfo in March, "but it honours the duty of care we should have to them at both ends of their career."
While the programme perhaps does not generate the coverage it deserves - it sometimes suffers for being judged on its short-term, on-field results rather than its long-term, off-field impact - a strong case could be mounted to suggest it offers, alongside the PCA's personal development programme, one of the most positive developments in player welfare since the introduction of pensions and insurance policies. It receives no direct funding from the ECB.
It easily represents the biggest outlay of funds made each year by the MCC on cricket projects. The MCC has, over the last decade, spent more than £6.5m on the project and, in addition to the six MCCU centres, includes the funding of the MCC Combined Universities side (which consists of cricketers unsigned by the first-class counties and has just enjoyed its best season in the 2nd XI Championship) and the Loughborough Women side.
Fowler stood down from his post at Durham MCCU in 2015. He was concerned by changes to the programme which he saw as an emphasis shift away from the development of excellence and more towards community based initiatives.