A few years ago, the film director Steve McQueen invited every year three pupil in London to have their photograph taken for an exhibition later showcased at the Tate. The result was a snapshot of a generation, one that highlighted the extraordinary level of diversity among the capital’s schoolchildren: there have been Olympic opening ceremonies and meetings of the UN’s general assembly without such a mix.
Those pictures sprang to mind when reading the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket’s bleak assessment of the sport’s decline in state schools this week. There were headline figures, like the fact that the number of state schools entering competitions has dropped by a third in 20 years, and pointed anecdotes, like the one from a parent whose child was invited to take part in a county’s three-day “holiday” training camp, only to find it was scheduled during state school term time.
In comparison to the report’s grim stories of racism and sexism still rife in the game, the non-revelation that cricket remains an elitist arena may have come as no shock. But if cricket is serious about addressing its discrimination problem, then getting the game thriving in state schools — and in particular those in deprived areas, which, in London, also tend to be among the most diverse — will be key.
Here is the theory, laid out by Ebony Rainford-Brent, the first black woman to play for England, in an interview this year: “The bigger problem in cricket is around class. When you look at the provision in low socio-economic areas, that is the void I want us to fill. If we did, we would solve the race problem and could help solve the lack of diversity in the female game. If we got into that one area, diversity would automatically flow.”
That is, of course, umpteen times more easily said than done.
“Without a pitch to play on there is no cricket,” says Alex Welsh of the London Playing Fields Foundation, and a lack of facilities remains the most explicit barrier to state school participation. Few were lucky enough to have their own grounds in the first place but, with upkeep expensive and local authorities cutting costs, London has lost 41 per cent of its grass wickets since 1990 and many schools are having to travel further than ever to find a place to play.
Teachers also bemoan more basic, logistical problems. Class sizes, for instance, are prohibitive, with games like football more conducive to keeping large groups engaged. Several told the Standard that they teach sports on rotation, each lasting only half-a-term, equating to as little as 12 hours of PE cricket a year. The ICEC report, meanwhile, details focused private school programmes where children play cricket for 10 hours a week.
The England and Wales Cricket Board already works closely with Chance To Shine, providing £2.9million of funding in 2023 after the charity took cricket into 407 state primary schools in London alone last year. The London Cricket Trust, which tries to tackle the facilities problem by installing artificial wickets in parks for use by local clubs and state schools, also gets significant backing from the body, with co-ordinator Ed Griffiths claiming he “does not recognise” the ECB depicted in the review... “it paints the ECB as reluctant to address the problem. That has not been my experience”.
Secondary school drop-off, though, remains a major problem, in line with wider societal trends and while Chance To Shine is keen to do more, cost is everything. “Our work is fully scalable but the current economic climate makes it more challenging than ever to continue to expand,” a spokesman said.
There are success stories. William Perkin CofE High School in Greenford has built a thriving cricket set-up, with an elite sixth-form academy, headed by former England international Sajid Mahmood, with facilities that would be the envy of many independent rivals, including some they have beaten en route to today’s U19 Middlesex Cup final.
The William Perkin struggles, however, to find regular state school opposition and Mahmood worries that the project will not be entirely replicable elsewhere.
“I came from a state school background so I wanted to give something back,” he says. “But private schools can offer ex-pros a lot more money to coach.” So, what’s the solution? No one seems quite sure. Mahmood believes county clubs in and around London must do more, sending coaches into schools to “inspire kids to play”. Welsh says community heroes must be amplified: “Go out and find those fantastic people who are doing a brilliant job in spite of the system, not because of it, and model your policy on them.”
Shahidul Alam Ratan, CEO of Capital Kids Cricket, insists too many people are obsessed with the “numbers game”, trying to introduce cricket to as many children as possible, when fixing the “missing link” between schools and local clubs to keep them playing is the real challenge.
Any sort of wider progress, however, will surely have to come from the top. Reacting to the report last week, the ECB’s new chairman Richard Thompson said he wanted to make cricket “the most inclusive sport in the country”.
That ambition, while admirable, is probably a fantasy. In London, though, state schools would be a good place to start.
