After the Ashes. England Test cricket & class. A Change Is Gonna Come….
The debacle of the Ashes series just ended together with issues of racism in County cricket underline an urgent need for change in English and Welsh cricket. A broadening of its base is one part of that.
Out of the 11 England men’s players to face Australia at Sydney for the Fourth Test just 3 went to State Schools- Ben Stokes, Mark Wood and Jimmy Anderson. That is about average in recent years. A recent statistical survey suggested the figure was around 37%. By contrast the England men’s football team has an average of 86%.
That is not to suggest that the England X1 are anything but good cricketers. No doubt part of the next few weeks will be spent discussing their strengths and weaknesses. One context to that must be the enormous stress and strain the players will have felt playing under all manner of restrictions since the English summer of 2020. That’s a long time now.
It does however still suggest that English cricket is very narrowly class based and is missing out on a huge range of potential talent from State education students.
Indeed of the England Under-19 team currently playing in the World Cup I can find at most 2 who went to State schools. They are part of the future of English cricket but there should be more to it than just the perpetuation public school rule at the top level, good though the players may be.
A further interesting point is that of the three players at Sydney who went to State schools two are fast bowlers and third Ben Stokes is an all-rounder who also bowls. It looks like the Gentlemen (batsmen) v Players (bowlers) distinction which was abolished in the early 1960s still in practice exists. Of course there were some Gentleman bowlers and some batsman who were Players but the general point maintains
Times have changed, or they should have.
Unfortunately I note in the last few days the ECB appear to be planning a further lengthy deal with Sky to show England Home Tests. There is nothing wrong with Sky coverage (providing you can pay for it) but it gets relatively few viewers and certainly wont be ‘selling’ Test cricket to new generations on that basis because they won’t be watching.
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