The Official Cricket Thread

[fishfoodie]

Ireland might be able to turn over the Windies in their 2nd ODI; they've bowled them out for 229, in 48 overs.

[fishfoodie]

Damn; I jinxed them

4 . . 4 nb 6 W

The 6 took Stirling over 5000 ODI runs, the first Ireland player to do so.

Current RR: 8.54 Required RR: 4.11

[fishfoodie]

Still looking good 100-2, after 19 overs; really should be able to close out the win

[fishfoodie]

Covers on, & according to locals, it's not looking good for more overs today.

Ireland 26 ahead on DLS !, with 157/4 off 31.2

[fishfoodie]

Ireland Win, by 5 wickets !!!!

they did actually get out to bat again needing 11 off 28 balls, & delivered; to level the series.

Windies fielding was God awful; & Ireland were able to regularly get 5 singles & a dot from an over; & when you only have a RRR of ~4, that's all you need to do

[fishfoodie]

God; my heart. Ireland; after cruising along to 190/4 chasing 213; lose a flurry of wickets; & end up winning by 2 wickets; to win, only their 2nd series away from home !

[Camroc2]

We seem to have found a batsman with the right temperament in Harry Tector. His batting the reason we won the series imo.

[iarmhí]

It has got very little coverage.

For a team like ours, beating a side like the Windies is massive.

[Torquemada 1420]

God; my heart. Ireland; after cruising along to 190/4 chasing 213; lose a flurry of wickets; & end up winning by 2 wickets; to win, only their 2nd series away from home !

Still a great achievement for Ireland but is also a very sad pointer at how far Windies cricket has fallen.

[sturginho]

Thread Irished!

[fishfoodie]

God; my heart. Ireland; after cruising along to 190/4 chasing 213; lose a flurry of wickets; & end up winning by 2 wickets; to win, only their 2nd series away from home !

Still a great achievement for Ireland but is also a very sad pointer at how far Windies cricket has fallen.

The irony being; that Phil Simmons was the coach that lifted Irish cricket up to the level where we were beating sides like Pakistan, & England.

[Gumboot]

The Black Caps’ four-match cricket tour of Australia is off, with no guarantee as to when the players could return to New Zealand.

New Zealand Cricket confirmed the tour postponement on Wednesday, until further notice, just days before the squad were originally scheduled to depart.

No managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) spots had been booked for the players and management when the tour was confirmed last year, in anticipation of quarantine-free travel between the two countries in February.

Bugger.

[OomStruisbaai]

Hope they learn from this to get the Proteas tour right.

[Kiwias]

The Black Caps’ four-match cricket tour of Australia is off, with no guarantee as to when the players could return to New Zealand.

New Zealand Cricket confirmed the tour postponement on Wednesday, until further notice, just days before the squad were originally scheduled to depart.

No managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) spots had been booked for the players and management when the tour was confirmed last year, in anticipation of quarantine-free travel between the two countries in February.

Bugger.

It is the right decision but

[Ymx]

Hope they learn from this to get the Proteas tour right.

Aren’t the proteas coming over to NZ?

[Ymx]

The Black Caps’ four-match cricket tour of Australia is off, with no guarantee as to when the players could return to New Zealand.

New Zealand Cricket confirmed the tour postponement on Wednesday, until further notice, just days before the squad were originally scheduled to depart.

No managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) spots had been booked for the players and management when the tour was confirmed last year, in anticipation of quarantine-free travel between the two countries in February.

Bugger.

It is the right decision but

Yep. Best to stay well away from Aus immigration !!!

[OomStruisbaai]

Hope they learn from this to get the Proteas tour right.

Aren’t the proteas coming over to NZ?

Yes. Hope they get the policies of entering NZ right.

[Torquemada 1420]

Well, this is bizarre:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/202 ... bad-thing/

Do you think the Torygraph editor knows who Panesar is?

[JM2K6]

Monty's said some really weird shit over the years but I'm not seeing what's wrong with the general point he's making there

[Torquemada 1420]

Monty's said some really weird shit over the years but I'm not seeing what's wrong with the general point he's making there

I thought it was really odd that a paper would post an article which was broadly in support of drinking in sport....... penned by an alcoholic who became one from drinking in sport.

[OomStruisbaai]

2021 ICC cricket awards

ICC Umpire of the Year – Marais Erasmus

Standing in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup final between Australia and New Zealand, Marais Erasmus has led the way in his officiating, earning the respect of his peers and the international cricket fraternity.

The 2021 ICC Umpire of the Year Award sits alongside his successive Dave Shepherd Trophies, won in 2016 and 2017.

On top of the T20 World Cup final, Erasmus has overseen 20 international fixtures across the three formats in 2021.

ICC Men’s T20I Cricketer of the Year – Mohammad Rizwan (Pakistan)

1326 runs in 29 matches at an average of 73.66 with one century; 24 dismissals.

Making his maiden T20I century in February against South Africa, Rizwan propelled his form into the T20 World Cup, making 79* from just 55 balls against India in their T20 World Cup opener, and finished as the third-highest run-scorer in the competition.

ICC Women’s T20I Cricketer of the Year – Tammy Beaumont (England)

303 runs in nine matches at an average of 33.66 with three half-centuries.

Providing a bank of runs for her country, Beaumont was Player of the Series in an away series against New Zealand, and the highest run-scorer when the teams met on English soil later in the year.

ICC Emerging Men’s Cricketer of the Year – Janneman Malan (South Africa)

715 runs in 17 international matches at 47.66 Average and 101.85 strike-rate, including two centuries and three fifties.

After sliding in and out of the team for the best part of two years, Janneman Malan finally cemented a spot in South Africa's line-up, taking a liking to the fifty-over game especially.

The 25-year-old made 715 runs across the two formats, which included an unbeaten 177 against Ireland in Dublin, and a knock of 121 against Sri Lanka in Colombo.

ICC Emerging Women’s Cricketer of the Year – Fatima Sana (Pakistan)

24 wickets at an average of 23.95 and 165 runs at 16.50 in 16 international matches.

20-year-old Pakistani pacer Fatima Sana impressed one and all with her all-round efforts in 2021. She became an integral part of Pakistan's ODI and T20I side owing to her wicket-taking ability as a bowler, and ability to add handy runs down the order at the same time.

ICC Men’s Associate Cricketer of the Year – Zeeshan Maqsood (Oman)

316 runs at 31.60 and 21 wickets at 18.80 across 13 international matches.

It was a memorable year for Maqsood, leading his nation at a T20 World Cup on home soil.

On top of that honour, Maqsood led with his play, picking up Player of the Match honours in their tournament win over Papua New Guinea with bowling figures of 4/20.

Maqsood's Oman are also well-positioned in Cricket World Cup League 2, off the back of his work with both ball and bat.

ICC Women’s Associate Cricketer of the Year – Andrea-Mae Zepeda (Austria)

361 runs in eight T20Is at an average of 51.57 and strike-rate of 102.55, including a century and two fifties.

Zepeda was in destructive form for Australia, particularly against rivals Belgium, making 50+ scores, including a century, in all three matches against them.

ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year – Babar Azam

405 runs in six matches at an average of 67.50 with two centuries

Babar Azam might have played only six ODis in 2021, but he made vital contributions in the two series that Pakistan played this year.

He was the second-highest run-scorer with 228 runs and was the Player of the Match in both of Pakistan's wins in the 2-1 series victory against South Africa. The architect of Pakistan's chase of 274 in the first ODI, Babar made a century and laid the foundation with an 82-ball 94 in the final ODI where the visitors posted 320 batting first.

ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year – Lizelle Lee (South Africa)

632 runs in 11 matches at an average of 90.28 with one century and five half-centuries

Lizelle Lee was in a league of her own in ODIs this year, finishing as the highest run-scorer in 2021 in the format.

Lee's year got off to a less-than-ideal start, getting out for a duck in the first ODI against Pakistan, but she came back strongly with two scores of 40+ and played a vital role in South Africa's sweep.

ICC Men’s Test Cricketer of the Year – Joe Root (England)

1708 runs in 15 matches with six centuries.

The magnitude of Joe Root's sublime form in the year 2021 can be summed up by one simple stat – he has become only the third player in history to aggregate over 1700 runs in Test cricket in a calendar year. Only Mohammad Yousuf and Sir Vivian Richards stand ahead of him.

Be it Asia or conditions back at home and against a range of bowling, Root has almost conquered all with some sublime innings. His knocks in Galle against Sri Lanka, and against India in both Chennai and Lord's are some of the finest witnessed in the modern era, and will be spoken of highly for a long, long time. He hasn't been shabby with the ball as well, chipping in with a handy 14 wickets.

Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy for ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year – Smriti Mandhana (India)

855 runs in 22 internationals at an average of 38.86 with one century and five half-centuries.

Despite India enduring a difficult 2021, Smriti Mandhana's stock continued to rise this year.

In the limited-overs series against South Africa where India won just two of the eight matches at home, Mandhana played a major role in both of the wins. She made 80 not out as India chased down 158 in the second ODI that helped them level the series and scored 48 not out in the win in the final T20I.

Mandhana played a sublime innings of 78 in the first innings of the one-off Test against England that ended in a draw. She played an important knock of 49 in India's only win in the ODI series. Her 15-ball 29 and fifty in the T20I series went in vain though as India fell short in both the matches and lost the series 2-1.

Mandhana was in good touch in the series against Australia, starting with the ODI series where she scored 86 in the second ODI. She compiled a brilliant century in the only Test (the first of her career), and was awarded the Player of the Match. She scored her second T20I fifty of the year in the final T20I, though India fell short and lost the series 2-0.

Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year – Shaheen Afridi (Pakistan)

78 wickets in 36 internationals at an average of 22.20. Best bowling figures of 6/51.

The tall Pakistani quick was on fire throughout 2021, knocking some of the best batters over across all three formats of the game. He especially had a year to remember in Tests and T20Is, reaching his peak during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup in UAE where he impressed one and all with his sheer speed and skills.

ICC Spirit of Cricket Award – To be announced

ICC Teams of the Year
The ICC Women’s T20I Team of 2021: Smriti Mandhana (IND), Tammy Beaumont (ENG), Danni Wyatt (ENG), Gaby Lewis (IRE), Nat Sciver (ENG, C) Amy Jones (ENG, WK), Laura Wolvaardt (SA), Marizanne Kapp (SA), Sophie Ecclestone (ENG), Loryn Phiri (ZIM) and Shabnim Ismail (SA).

The ICC Men’s T20I Team of 2021: Jos Butler (ENG), Mohammad Rizwan (PAK, WK), Babar Azam (PAK, C), Aiden Markram (SA), Mitchell Marsh (AUS), David Miller (SA), Wanindu Hasaranga (SL), Tabraiz Shamsi (SA), Josh Hazlewood (AUS), Mustafizur Rahman (BANG) and Shaheen Afridi (PAK).

The ICC Men’s ODI Team of 2021: Paul Stirling (IRE), Janneman Malan (SA), Babar Azam (PAK, C), Fakhar Zaman (PAK), Rassie van der Dussen (SA), Shakib Al-Hasan (BANG), Mushfiqur Rahim (BANG, WK), Wanindu Hasaranga (SL), Mustafizur Rahman (BANG), Simi Singh (IRE) and Dushmantha Chameera (SL)

The ICC Women’s ODI Team of 2021: Lizelle Lee (SA), Alyssa Healy (AUS), Tammy Beaumont (ENG), Mithali Raj (IND), Heather Knight (ENG, C), Marizanne Kapp (SA), Hayley Matthews (WI), Fatima Sana (PAK), Jhulan Goswami (IND), Shabnim Ismail (SA) and Anisa Mohammed (WI).

ICC Men’s Test Team for 2021: Dimuth Karunaratne (SL), Rohit Sharma (India), Marnus Labuschagne (AUS), Joe Root (ENG), Kane Williamson (NZ), Fawad Alam (PAK), Rishabh Pant (IND, WK), Ravichandran Ashwin (IND), Kyle Jamison (NZ), Hasan Ali (PAK) and Shaheen Afridi (PAK).

[JM2K6]

England won 6/8 ODIs in 2021, hamering India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. Can't get a player into the ODI team of the year. Hmm :-)

We made loads of changes so it's not total nonsense and is actually understandable, but (for example) Bairstow averaged 58 during that time including a 94 and a big hundred. Says more about how well we managed so many changes tbh, looking back at some of the scorecards and I'd totally forgotten Phil Salt had played so well, or Carse had done so well with the ball. Very different to the Test side!

[Paddington Bear]

Well, this is bizarre:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/202 ... bad-thing/

Do you think the Torygraph editor knows who Panesar is?

'Having a few beers can be a key part of a team environment but there needs to be less tolerance of binge drinking from players and supporters' seems to be a really sensible take IMHO

[OomStruisbaai]

Two Bolanders , Marais Erasmus & Janneman Malan, winning

Proudly Boland!

[Torquemada 1420]

Well, this is bizarre:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/202 ... bad-thing/

Do you think the Torygraph editor knows who Panesar is?

'Having a few beers can be a key part of a team environment but there needs to be less tolerance of binge drinking from players and supporters' seems to be a really sensible take IMHO

Yes. We get it. But having Monty cite it is a bit like having a smackhead penning an article extolling the virtues of opioids in palliative care but warning that drugzzz are baaaaaaaaad.

[Slick]

I’m not being provocative here, I don’t know what the issue is with this statement

Middlesex chairman apologises for 'painful' and 'outdated' views on black and South Asian interest https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/60125897

[JM2K6]

I’m not being provocative here, I don’t know what the issue is with this statement

Middlesex chairman apologises for 'painful' and 'outdated' views on black and South Asian interest https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/60125897

Because it's a ridiculous stereotype. Asian people are too interested in academia to get into cricket? What? Has he met any, ever?

Ronay was covering it at the time and wrote this up: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/ ... in-trouble

[Paddington Bear]

He was being clumsy and clearly hadn't prepared properly. The ECB and counties have data that shows British Indian kids tend to prioritise (or have prioritised for them) academics in their mid-late teens over playing cricket on pathways multiple times a week (that they shouldn't need to play multiple times a week on said pathways is another matter). Getting them into the pro game, or even back into the recreational game is then a challenge.
The decline of Black British cricket is well known and something of a tragedy. The plural of anecdote is not anecdata but I haven't played with or against a Black Brit under 40 in at least a couple of years, and you can see the lack of numbers in the pro game.

What he was trying to say has a lot behind it but he came across as a bumbling elderly racist. Because, and I've mentioned this before, cricket is run by people who don't really 'get it'. That even at this stage these guys aren't being coached within an inch of their lives before these hearings is genuinely astonishing.

[Slick]

Yeah, that was my take on it really.

Those 2 points that have been ridiculed were, I thought, fairly well established. Not the only ones of course, but nonetheless.

I haven't seen his performance but I'm not sure how things are expected to move forward when people come down like a ton of bricks because facts are not presented exactly to their liking. It's almost as if that's not really their main interest. You would think he would be coached/better prepared but is the pile on really helping anything?

As an aside, as the Chairman of Middlesex I expect he has had more contact with Asians than the rest of us put together.

[JM2K6]

Cricket chairmen, men of the people.

Look, if you're in charge of a county and you're being asked about the lack of black and asian players, you don't trot out stereotypes. "Black people are more interested in football" "Asian people are more interested in studying" - FFS, those *are* stereotypes, and it's your job to work out WHY black people are turned off by cricket, and WHY Asian kids in the UK - despite a huge cultural background of being obsessed with cricket - might decide to stick with their studies instead if that's what your study* shows.

Black people and asian people are not monolithic hive-minds. There's plenty of asian kids who couldn't give a shit about their studies. Plenty of black kids who'd be more interested in Viv Richards or Jofra Archer than Ronaldo. Writing them off because "oh, they're just not into it" like the colour of their skin determines their interest in cricket is absolutely brain-dead.

On black cricketers in the UK:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... -different

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/ ... ampionship

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/ ... ons-tweets

All worth reading.


* I would take this with a huge pinch of salt to begin with, and treating it as the gospel truth would be a mistake. Bad data leading to truisms is a thing

[Paddington Bear]

I think you're missing the point - obviously any coach who looks at a 12 year old kid and writes them off because they're Indian and will therefore drop out of the academy is being racist (and I know there are coaches that do this).

If we're looking into why there is a drop off on a national level, and it does, then the data is helpful.

'Black people are more interested in football' isn't so much a stereotype as an established fact that has been true for 20 years or more. Counties can do much more for these communities but playing numbers just aren't there, and the cause of this is not purely racism.

it's your job to work out WHY black people are turned off by cricket, and WHY Asian kids in the UK - despite a huge cultural background of being obsessed with cricket - might decide to stick with their studies instead if that's what your study* shows.

Yes and I'm being charitable to him here but this is what he meant, he expressed himself very poorly. This won't change overnight.

Black people and asian people are not monolithic hive-minds. There's plenty of asian kids who couldn't give a shit about their studies. Plenty of black kids who'd be more interested in Viv Richards or Jofra Archer than Ronaldo. Writing them off because "oh, they're just not into it" like the colour of their skin determines their interest in cricket is absolutely brain-dead.

Yes but again this misses the point that there is national data that points to this. Obviously things aren't monolithic but if we're asking why x% of pros are of each race you look at national data, to which there are always exceptions.

As an aside I read the BBC piece. My club and me personally are involved in Rainford-Brent's ACE initiative. It's a very worthy scheme that has my full support, but suggesting that it is a talent pool that is about to produce a pipeline of pros and junior academy players just isn't true. These kids are from backgrounds where they'd never picked up a bat before, our ground is the first place some of them ever played on grass, and did so as teenagers. Most decent cricketers learned the game much younger. When they played our half reasonable juniors we had to switch the sides up half way through the match because it was a drubbing. There will be results from it but not for a long time.

[JM2K6]

Don't hang your hat on "the data" and treat it as an inalienable truth.

edit: "But it's true black people prefer football" - it's irrelevant! There's no reason why that should be the case that isn't in the power of English cricket to resolve. There's no cultural barrier. No reason why their skin colour should prevent them from enjoying cricket. It's a self-defeating loop - there's very few black players, so it's harder to get black people to follow the sport because there's fewer players to identify with, so they get written off as preferring a different sport, so there's very few black players, so...

[Paddington Bear]

Fwiw this is O'Farrell's apology statement sent to us as members yesterday:

Further to this morning’s DCMS Select Committee hearing, at which the Club’s Chair, Mike O’Farrell, appeared as a witness, he has issued the following personal statement:



“First and foremost, I wish to offer my wholehearted apologies for the misunderstanding that my comments made at this morning’s DCMS Select Committee hearing have evidently caused.



“I wholly accept that this misunderstanding is entirely down to my own lack of clarity and context in the answers I provided, and I am devastated that my comments have led to the conclusions some have made.



“For the purposes of clarification, I was aiming to make the point that as a game, cricket has failed a generation of young cricketers, in systematically failing to provide them with the same opportunities that other sports and sectors so successfully provide.



“Cricket has to take responsibility for these failings and must learn that until we make the game an attractive proposition for youngsters of all backgrounds to continue through the pathway into the professional game, much like other sports and sectors are doing, the game won’t make the progress it needs to.



“We at Middlesex are no different. We have an Academy side that contains in excess of 60% British born Asian and black young cricketers, and we must take responsibility for ensuring that the route into the professional game is as accessible and appealing as other sports or opportunities.



“I speak on behalf of the entire Club in saying that our desire is to see a first eleven walking out to play for the Club which is truly reflective of the broadly diverse county that Middlesex is today and that we will do all within our power to make that happen.



“Once again I apologise for any upset or hurt my earlier comments may have caused, that was most definitely not my intention.”

I'm taking him at good faith because I have no reason not to and my experiences of Middlesex cricket at pro and pathway level suggest there isn't a Yorkshire like atmosphere at all. I think he just expressed himself poorly because he's not a brilliant speaker and was poorly prepared. Why he was poorly prepared and the ECB aren't coaching these guys through the sessions I have no idea.

[Insane_Homer]

Wimmins ashes had a doozy of a finish.

Woke up with England needing ~50 with 7 wickets in hand to win, but needing to push the run rate to get it done before the close. Chased at after 5 an over to make a game of it, but then it all started falling apart before handing on for the last ~2 overs for the draw with just wicket in hand!

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/wom ... h-report-4

[Lobby]

Wimmins ashes had a doozy of a finish.

Woke up with England needing ~50 with 7 wickets in hand to win, but needing to push the run rate to get it done before the close. Chased at after 5 an over to make a game of it, but then it all started falling apart before handing on for the last ~2 overs for the draw with just wicket in hand!

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/wom ... h-report-4

Shame about the rain on Day 3, and that there wasn't a fifth day to get a result (mind you, Aus would have been favourites if there had been). Good to see that both teams were trying to get the win, at least until the last two overs.

Heather Knight's unbeaten 168 in the first innings while everyone else crumbled around her was pretty special as well.

[Torquemada 1420]

Cricket chairmen, men of the people.

Look, if you're in charge of a county and you're being asked about the lack of black and asian players, you don't trot out stereotypes. "Black people are more interested in football" "Asian people are more interested in studying" - FFS, those *are* stereotypes, and it's your job to work out WHY black people are turned off by cricket, and WHY Asian kids in the UK - despite a huge cultural background of being obsessed with cricket - might decide to stick with their studies instead if that's what your study* shows.

Black people and asian people are not monolithic hive-minds. There's plenty of asian kids who couldn't give a shit about their studies. Plenty of black kids who'd be more interested in Viv Richards or Jofra Archer than Ronaldo. Writing them off because "oh, they're just not into it" like the colour of their skin determines their interest in cricket is absolutely brain-dead.

On black cricketers in the UK:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... -different

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/ ... ampionship

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/ ... ons-tweets

All worth reading.


* I would take this with a huge pinch of salt to begin with, and treating it as the gospel truth would be a mistake. Bad data leading to truisms is a thing

Where to start with this? Obviously, trotting out stereotypes was a crass mistake and highlighted what we all knew already about who runs English cricket (tennis is worse)..... even if a stereotype might generally be true: the Swiss really are the most anally retentive race on the planet......

In regards "Asians", which ones? Yes, there are some Indian background kids who don't care about studying BUT that's not the point I suspect. What matters is what their parents think and "how big is his dunda?" is absolutely a thing in education. I would wager if we wanted a look at stereotypes, that Indians disproportionately represent doctors, dentists and pharmacists. Once they have their careers, Indians absolutely want to play cricket in their leisure time as the amount of players in your local leagues would probably affirm. It's not just cricket, but anything that might be deemed too much a distraction from studies. What I don't know is how much time (real or imagined) is needed for kids to seriously embark on a cricket path. The reason they tend to stick with their studies is simply because their parents consider a successful sporting career a long shot cw getting a "proper job". Of course, in the sub continent, it's the reverse i.e. cricket offers an escape path from poverty.

This is a self fulfilling prophecy. Indian kids would require a significant change of mindset and resource application by the counties to try and increase their numbers which the counties probably consider too hard and so provides them with the ideal excuse simply not to bother.

The position in regards blacks is far more complicated.

[Torquemada 1420]

Don't hang your hat on "the data" and treat it as an inalienable truth.

edit: "But it's true black people prefer football" - it's irrelevant! There's no reason why that should be the case that isn't in the power of English cricket to resolve. There's no cultural barrier. No reason why their skin colour should prevent them from enjoying cricket. It's a self-defeating loop - there's very few black players, so it's harder to get black people to follow the sport because there's fewer players to identify with, so they get written off as preferring a different sport, so there's very few black players, so...

There are plenty of reasons why English cricket might struggle to attract kids away from football (and these don't simply apply to black kids). Football is
- seen as more glamorous
- is far better paid. A friend's son plays for Salford. I know what he gets paid and I bet it's more than anyone in English cricket outside of internationals.
- is way more likely to be a sport where you could carve out a career: just count the number of football clubs versus county cricket clubs (yes, I accept the competing player pool is also much higher in football too).
- is a lot easier to get into: any patch of mud will do for football and there's a lot more such "facilities".
- is a lot cheaper to get into. Cricket is an expensive sport and blacks are disproportionately in the poorer households.
- going back to facilities, cricket (yeah, I know this is not absolute by any means) tend to be in middle class-ish areas where there are fewer black families

One of the reasons Windies cricket has gone down the toilet is that you can substitute basketball for football in many of the points above. It's not simply a question of whether they would enjoy cricket but whether they would enjoy or want to play something else more. And yes, your last line is 100% true PLUS you missed the fact that what black kid is going to want to play something where there are no other black kids? The only realistic path I can see to trying to tackle this problem is at school level but extra curricular stuff like cricket disappeared of the agenda at state schools 40 years ago.

{EDIT} I missed a point here. A lot of white kids who go into cricket do so because they can. They come from wealthy backgrounds and if the cricket doesn't work out, daddy can get Tarquin a job with his contacts at the bank/stock brokers. It's a zero risk punt. A punt black kids can't afford to take and a punt the parents of Indian kids don't want to take.

{EDIT 2} I'm not disagreeing with you. Entirely in your camp that the whole attitude within English cricket stinks. Just think that there are so many factors that make cricket low in desirability to the ethnic groups mentioned that even if cricket's attitude was perfect, it would still struggle to make meaningful increases in representation.

[Paddington Bear]

Cricket's participation issues are well known and the decline in white working class cricket is IMO the biggest existential threat to the sport in this country.

Well versed previously but fundamentally cricket used to be a national sport in a way it just isn't now. Exactly where you'd draw that cut off I don't know - 81 was probably the last time cricket was a truly national moment and since then only football has managed it. Every club that folds is tragic but what's notable is how many that do fold were founded in the 50s or 60s - the old traditional clubs largely soldier on.

Facilities is crucial and the decline of the game in state schools and then selling on their playing fields is a double whammy that is really hard to come back from. The game has gone out of the national consciousness and is hard to coach unless you understand it well, less teachers understand it so fewer schools offer it, etc etc the cycle goes on. Council pitches where they still exist are almost universally disgraceful which just exacerbates this further. We offered our ground FOC to a local comprehensive and a club up the road formally complained to our local cricket board that this would impact their playing numbers so we were asked not to. So many self inflicted wounds.

The issue is wider than race and I suspect in 20 years we'll be talking about the declining numbers of young asian players in the game (this is already observable in Muslim community teams). No easy fixes.

[Rinkals]

Cricket's participation issues are well known and the decline in white working class cricket is IMO the biggest existential threat to the sport in this country.

Well versed previously but fundamentally cricket used to be a national sport in a way it just isn't now. Exactly where you'd draw that cut off I don't know - 81 was probably the last time cricket was a truly national moment and since then only football has managed it. Every club that folds is tragic but what's notable is how many that do fold were founded in the 50s or 60s - the old traditional clubs largely soldier on.

Facilities is crucial and the decline of the game in state schools and then selling on their playing fields is a double whammy that is really hard to come back from. The game has gone out of the national consciousness and is hard to coach unless you understand it well, less teachers understand it so fewer schools offer it, etc etc the cycle goes on. Council pitches where they still exist are almost universally disgraceful which just exacerbates this further. We offered our ground FOC to a local comprehensive and a club up the road formally complained to our local cricket board that this would impact their playing numbers so we were asked not to. So many self inflicted wounds.

The issue is wider than race and I suspect in 20 years we'll be talking about the declining numbers of young asian players in the game (this is already observable in Muslim community teams). No easy fixes.

Your problem is that it's too complicated for the average English working class youth to understand, lasts too long, allows the draw after five days, is too leisurely and doesn't have much running around.

Football is just over an hour, easy to understand with lots of running around. Plus, you get to riot and beat up opposition supporters if you lose. or even if you win.

No contest.

But, to be serious for a moment, competitions like the 100 are targeted at addressing some of this, but it's still too difficult to understand, and, probably because of this, is regarded as elitist. For example, there are 10 ways of getting a batsman out, a player can't be out LBW to a ball pitching outside leg but can be out if it pitches outside off (leg? off?), but, if the ball strikes the pad outside off, he still can't be out. Unless he's not playing a shot (wait, what?).

Until you get kids wanting to spend the time to learn the game, you are fighting a losing battle.

If you look at the game in South Africa, there has been a concerted effort to court black kids into the game and this has been done by limiting the number of whites allowed to play in domestic cricket. I'm not up with the current numbers, but it used to be that domestic sides had to have 6 of the eleven black players. This meant that black players were getting a better opportunity to play for the National side, which means that we now have black role models for black youngster to aspire to emulate, which has lead to an explosion of the game's popularity amongst blacks in the country.

Obviously, a player like Kwena Maphaka, who at 15 years of age has been showing great form for the U19, is less likely to have an English grandparent than Dewald Brevis who (I understand from a tweet by Jon Kent) has the ECB taking an interest as a possible England player.

I may be wrong, but I'm inclined to believe that the average black kid is more likely to take an interest in understanding the game than your average bored English kid who is probably wrapped up in his iPhone.*

*Obviously, these are stereotypes and there are probably hundreds of English kid across the country who are prepared to spend the time to study the game.

[JM2K6]

Obviously, a player like Kwena Maphaka, who at 15 years of age has been showing great form for the U19, is less likely to have an English grandparent than Dewald Brevis who (I understand from a tweet by Jon Kent) has the ECB taking an interest as a possible England player.

I wasn't aware of this, so I went through Jon Kent's twitter feed. He's made one tweet featuring the word "Brevis", and it's this one:



Which is as obvious a joke as you'll ever see, with Swann - not the ECB - joking about checking to see if a player tearing up the U20s is qualified for England, and Kent finding it amusing.

What is wrong with you? Why are you like this?