A most hopeful vision of English cricket’s future will be on display in London this weekend – and not, with all due respect to Bazball, at the Oval. On Saturday, the National Hubs finals at Lord’s will showcase talent from the state-school training network that the MCC Foundation has built up over the past three years. In the wake of the damning findings on elitism in the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket’s report, there are plans to quadruple the programme’s reach over the next three.
There are 77 nationwide hubs helping to plug the huge hole where state school cricket should be; since their inception in 2011 they have offered high-quality coaching and matchplay to 20,000 young players who lack the well-documented advantages of the private school system. By 2027, the foundation’s director, Sarah Fane, who believes the scheme offers a ready-made answer to English cricket’s intractable issue of education-based exclusion, is determined to grow the number of hubs to 250.
