Cricket under the spotloght

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/66021884

Maybe not entirely related to education but what are your thoughts on the below? I was a little shocked at first and the examples of discrimination are vile but is it right to wrap in elitism into the criticism and recommend changing the nature of traditional cricket features?

I grew up in inner London. The state schools my brothers and more lately my nephews went to have cricket pitches. (One of the areas the schools concentrate on are sports hence the facilities.)

While my brother's played cricket at school, my nephews didn't.

I actually asked my nephews why and they said only Asian kids play cricket. My nephews were more interested in playing football and rugby union. In fact one of my nephews' classmates ended up playing for England in rugby.

There are two "villages" nearby that I've passed through for over 20 years. You can see the cricket club pitches from the road and can go and watch.

The demographic of both villages has become more mixed ethnically in that period.

However in one village all the cricket players are still white regardless of age.
While in the other village the vast majority of the cricket players are Asian and it has become more so in the last 10 years.

Both clubs are always recruiting members. Guess which club bothered trying to talk to me when I was just having a look at them playing?

With other sports who try and recruit new members, including elitist ones that have already been mentioned, if I'm just having a nose I get talked to as every person is a potential or can lead to a potential player.

Btw I'm black.

I heard a man on the radio yesterday saying that he has a son who is very talented at cricket. This involves him having to travel to matches, often on a week day, often all day. He sees lots of other dads there, all busily working away in their lap tops, but he has a manual job. He has to take the day off to get his boy there and he just can’t afford it. That’s the sort of thing that prevents working class kids getting on. And the attitude of the people at the top who seem to have no conception that this is a problem.

he added that his son’s comprehensive has no cricket pitch or indoor nets, no teacher with a cricketing specialty. And you can see how the odds are stacked against wc kids.

football, maybe because of the big money involved - another issue altogether- has learned that it has to invest heavily in younger and younger kids to access the widest possible talent pool. Cricket seems stuck in the 50s, in it’s frankly shocking attitudes and it’s business acumen.

as for the posh boys cricket match at lords, @mids2019 , can’t you see the symbolic importance of it?

Not surprised. I think at my kids leafy comp they do two weeks of cricket every year. Mine did the all stars programme at the local club but there wasn’t any way of joining one of the regular teams as full and managed by local private school parents.

if I’d wanted to spend loads of time and effort getting involved I suppose we could have done it, but there wasn’t any way of playing for fun and the private school kids were miles better because of all the practice so playing on one of the teams wasn’t an option.

the private school kids were miles better because of all the practice
Thsi is indeed a really big self perpetuating porblem at grassroots level that no one seems able to solve, nor do many clubs - or the ECB- have the desire to address it. Just let the 'other kids' play football..

Funnily enough at the school I work with, I walked past about 20 year 10 lads playing a scratch game of cricket tis morning! I was astonished. Slightly alarmed by the fact they were using a hard ball, mind...

Hi, your comment is very relevant to me. Would you be so kind as to name the club? I'm considering moving my kid to the bigger club nearby but fear this might happen there!

My foster plays cricket. He has played since he was 8 years old. He heard about this report on the news. His first thoughts were he is disabled and plays disabled cricket at county level but also plays for a local club who have happily included him. A couple of the players couldn't afford a lot but they are sponsored by Lord Taverners who bought those without a full kit. Coaches to travel to away fixtures are funded by LT too and indoor centre at Edgbaston so they get good training opportunities. His local club also have a woman and girls training evening and female teams who complete in the local league. Foster son is white but plays at a club with predominately Pakistan players. A Chance to Shine is a programme going into deprived schools cricket coaching and there are hubs in many clubs. There are also All Stars for younger children. Foster son said if girls and boys are included, brown people and white people, poor people and disabled people too, who is discriminated against? He has learning disabilities. He has played for a couple of different clubs and accepted for his ability by both.

To the person who thought £70 a year would cover kit. No it really won't. A decent pair of gloves are £42 and as FS lost one glove from his first pair this season so they needed replacing.

One of the problems with state v private in sport ime is the private schools will often do cricket for most of the summer term, and have a club after school etc.
Our local state school do different sports for 6 weeks at a time, so 12 x 1 hour lessons assuming no inset/strike/school trip etc days and if it's wet, they go inside too. The first lesson is always a talk on health and safety so maximum 11x around 40 minutes (giving changing time), and in real terms probably more often 8-9 lessons. And that's before we get to any issues like lack of kit, teachers not trained for the sport etc.
It's great for non-sporty ones like my dd1 and dd2. However it's not enough for anyone to really do enough oft the sport to find they're good at it, or even decide they like it enough to try and find a club to play at.

I don't think cancelling matches like the above ones is the way to fight the issues though. Not unless by cancelling them they can have another, more open match in its place eg the states' school cricket final instead of the Eton one. It just comes across as a reaction rather than actually trying to make a difference.
Why don't they say they can have the match on the condition that they put some money (or people to coach, maybe older pupils maybe) into something like the "Chance to Shine" programme mentioned above?