'We didn't expect to have 40,000 kids in five years'

Ebony Rainford-Brent is stepping down as Ace chair and says early success has inspired greater ambition

- Andy Bull

Maybe you missed Warwickshire's one-day cup game against Sussex in the dog days of August. It was a group fixture between two mid-table teams in a competition to which no one pays a lot of attention. But despite it all, the match marked a significant little milestone in the modern history of English cricket. Because Sussex gave a debut to a 21-year-old from Hemel Hempstead called Troy Henry, the first male player to come up into professional cricket through the Ace programme.

Henry had turned up for the very first trial Ace held, back when he was a teenage left-arm quick who dreamed of playing pro cricket and needed help to do it. Five years later, Sussex sent him in at No 9, he made 15 off eight balls, then came on fourth change and took one for 34 in four overs of left-arm spin: Ace's coaches had persuaded him that if he wanted to get ahead he ought to switch disciplines.

Four days later another Ace graduate, the 17-year-old Davina Perrin, smacked 101 off 43 balls for Northern Superchargers in the Hundred eliminator against London Spirit, in one of the stop-and-watch-this moments of the English summer. A month earlier a third Ace graduate, Amy Wheeler, signed a new one-year contract with the Blaze.