Building on its ‘Mobility for All’ positioning, automotive brand Toyota has signed new multi-year partnerships with Cricket Ireland and Cricket Scotland. 

The agreement will see Toyota become the Official Automotive Partner of Cricket Ireland and Cricket Scotland from May 2025. 

The partnership will see Toyota commit to supporting men’s and women’s national teams for Cricket Ireland and Scotland. The brand is also investing in initiatives to help foster the growth of grassroots participation across Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland.  

The partnerships follow Toyota’s recent appointment as the new Principal Partner to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in a multi-year partnership deal. The move underlines the automotive brand's commitment to growing the game and making cricket more fun and inclusive for everyone.

Growing grassroots participation in Ireland

Demonstrating its commitment to making cricket more accessible for all and cultivating wider engagement with grassroots cricket in Ireland, Toyota will also become the Official Partner of ‘Smash It’, a cricket programme for five to nine-year-olds. 

Toyota will work closely with Cricket Ireland and Smash It with the aim of introducing more children to the sport. Toyota and Cricket Ireland will together help to introduce 1,400 children to the programme in year one. To support this goal, Toyota will offer more than 200 bursary places, enabling those from lower socio-economic areas who otherwise may not ordinarily have the opportunity to take part in the programme for free. 

Alongside this, Toyota hopes to incentivise further participation in the sport by providing Smash It participants with one free adult and child ticket to an Ireland international game over the next two summers, including exciting fixtures against West Indies and England (men’s) and Zimbabwe and Pakistan (women’s). 

Increasing engagement in cricket in Scotland 

In Scotland, Toyota is investing in Scotland’s All Stars Cricket programme to encourage more children to get involved in the sport and subsequently grow the number of participants at grassroots level across Scotland. All Stars Cricket is an England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) programme, of which Toyota is the first official partner, that also operates in Scotland. Adopted by Cricket Scotland, the programme is designed to introduce five to eight-year-old children to the sport. 

This investment will see Toyota fund 200 free bursary places each year, focused on enabling greater access among state school pupils to the All-Stars programme, as well as children with disabilities at Additional Support Needs centres. 

In addition to the bursaries, Toyota’s dealerships will play a supporting role in growing All Stars Cricket among local communities by helping encourage sign-ups to the programme.  

Scott Thompson, President and Managing Director at Toyota, explained: "The two new partnerships with Cricket Ireland and Cricket Scotland build on Toyota's commitment to making cricket more accessible to all. Alongside our recent appointment as the new Principal Partner to the ECB, we are dedicated to nurturing and inspiring the growth of cricket's players, volunteers, and fans, both now and in the future. At Toyota, mobility is central to our mission, and these initiatives will empower more individuals throughout Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland to experience the joy of cricket and connect through sport." 

The move comes ahead of the Women’s Cricket World Cup in 2025.