English cricket is "racist, sexist, and elitist"
Discussion
A report investigating cricket (and commissioned by the ECC) has found cricket in England to be "racist, sexist, and elitist".
Cindy Butts, the Icec chair, said that fundamental change was quickly needed. “Our findings are unequivocal,” she said. “Discrimination is both overt and baked into the structures and processes within cricket. The stark reality is cricket is not a game for everyone.
“Racism, class-based discrimination, elitism and sexism are widespread and deep rooted. The game must face up to the fact that it’s not banter or just a few bad apples.”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jun/27/engl...
Rather grim reading if you're responsible for running cricket in this country.
Cindy Butts, the Icec chair, said that fundamental change was quickly needed. “Our findings are unequivocal,” she said. “Discrimination is both overt and baked into the structures and processes within cricket. The stark reality is cricket is not a game for everyone.
“Racism, class-based discrimination, elitism and sexism are widespread and deep rooted. The game must face up to the fact that it’s not banter or just a few bad apples.”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jun/27/engl...
Rather grim reading if you're responsible for running cricket in this country.
My son and I both play cricket for our local club (me very, very badly), and my wife coaches All Stars there. I like to think our club is doing its best to be inclusive - we're in a very white area though so I'm pretty sure there are no players or children of ethnic minorities present.
All our youth teams play as mixed teams with boys and girls, and we've got one girl that has made it through to playing for the 2nd XI, so again I'd say in our little corner of England we're doing our best.
Sounds like other places are quite different though.
On the point about the England team being predominantly made up of people who went to private school, this doesn't surprise me at all. My son goes to a normal comprehensive and if they're lucky he might get to play cricket a handful of times a year. I went to Ampleforth College and if you wanted to play cricket you'd be playing four or five times a week throughout summer with a relatively high standard of coaching. Just the extra hours of practice is going to make a huge difference. Add to that the fact that some schools now offer scholarships to gifted cricketers and it becomes even more likely.
All our youth teams play as mixed teams with boys and girls, and we've got one girl that has made it through to playing for the 2nd XI, so again I'd say in our little corner of England we're doing our best.
Sounds like other places are quite different though.
On the point about the England team being predominantly made up of people who went to private school, this doesn't surprise me at all. My son goes to a normal comprehensive and if they're lucky he might get to play cricket a handful of times a year. I went to Ampleforth College and if you wanted to play cricket you'd be playing four or five times a week throughout summer with a relatively high standard of coaching. Just the extra hours of practice is going to make a huge difference. Add to that the fact that some schools now offer scholarships to gifted cricketers and it becomes even more likely.
I've played a lot of cricket over many years in many places but mostly south east and midlands. Cricket is a team game but more about individuals within. It can attract some real knobs which is probably why I stopped playing as too much ego in local cricket is just a bit sad really.
I don't think I have seen anything really severe though, you would think it is gangland reading these titles. These days everything is "-ist" to the point where I don't really take too much note of this kind of thing. No doubt the ubiquitous "institutionally" will be thrown around next.
If there is a bias to privately educated, well if state schools couldn't be bothered to offer it then that will always be the case.
I don't think I have seen anything really severe though, you would think it is gangland reading these titles. These days everything is "-ist" to the point where I don't really take too much note of this kind of thing. No doubt the ubiquitous "institutionally" will be thrown around next.
If there is a bias to privately educated, well if state schools couldn't be bothered to offer it then that will always be the case.
PeteinSQ said:
My son and I both play cricket for our local club (me very, very badly), and my wife coaches All Stars there. I like to think our club is doing its best to be inclusive - we're in a very white area though so I'm pretty sure there are no players or children of ethnic minorities present.
All our youth teams play as mixed teams with boys and girls, and we've got one girl that has made it through to playing for the 2nd XI, so again I'd say in our little corner of England we're doing our best.
Sounds like other places are quite different though.
On the point about the England team being predominantly made up of people who went to private school, this doesn't surprise me at all. My son goes to a normal comprehensive and if they're lucky he might get to play cricket a handful of times a year. I went to Ampleforth College and if you wanted to play cricket you'd be playing four or five times a week throughout summer with a relatively high standard of coaching. Just the extra hours of practice is going to make a huge difference. Add to that the fact that some schools now offer scholarships to gifted cricketers and it becomes even more likely.
Try having a cricket mad son in Scotland. Similar findings to that pronounced on the state of Cricket Scotland. None of it is surprising. All our youth teams play as mixed teams with boys and girls, and we've got one girl that has made it through to playing for the 2nd XI, so again I'd say in our little corner of England we're doing our best.
Sounds like other places are quite different though.
On the point about the England team being predominantly made up of people who went to private school, this doesn't surprise me at all. My son goes to a normal comprehensive and if they're lucky he might get to play cricket a handful of times a year. I went to Ampleforth College and if you wanted to play cricket you'd be playing four or five times a week throughout summer with a relatively high standard of coaching. Just the extra hours of practice is going to make a huge difference. Add to that the fact that some schools now offer scholarships to gifted cricketers and it becomes even more likely.
The most frustrating aspects are the missed opportunities. So much talent denied a chance to shine. The private school dominance is also entirely unsurprising. My old school now has Chris Read as the Director of Cricket. Other schools I know of ensure all year round cricket training. Given the amount of cricket played in England and the County and Club setup, it's an organisational failure. Yes money is tight, but we in Scotland would kill for the opportunities that lie begging in England...
Tom8 said:
If there is a bias to privately educated, well if state schools couldn't be bothered to offer it then that will always be the case.
That does also mean that you get some crap from the private schools too, where you have some quality lurking at a state level, being effectivley suppressed.Catastrophic Poo said:
Tom8 said:
If there is a bias to privately educated, well if state schools couldn't be bothered to offer it then that will always be the case.
That does also mean that you get some crap from the private schools too, where you have some quality lurking at a state level, being effectivley suppressed.
Catastrophic Poo said:
That does also mean that you get some crap from the private schools too, where you have some quality lurking at a state level, being effectivley suppressed.
I don't think they're being suppressed - they're just not getting the opportunities which is slightly different. I try to get my son as much coaching as possible outside of school because cricket is his only sport, he's very passionate about it and I want him to be good enough that it will always be enjoyable. Obviously a lot of people can't afford to pay for this sort of coaching and so there will be lots of talent going undiscovered/undeveloped. The ECC should really work on that if they want to broaden where talent is coming from.
55palfers said:
I wonder if schools being forced to sell off their sports grounds has had any impact at all.
It won't have helped, but there doesn't seem to be any time set aside in the school day for sport. The focus is very much on the academic, and there doesn't appear to be any funding for staff to lead on sport. At Ampleforth we didn't finish lessons until 5:30, and that was because every day we had sport in the afternoon. Obviously they had to pay people to coach is in rugby, cricket, cross country or whatever it was you were doing. State secondary schools don't have the money for this so the day finishes at 3pm and PE happens once a week.
Oh and of course with PE only being once a week, and there being so many sports to choose from they tend to them on a rotation so you never actually get any good at any of them.
b
hstewie said:
hstewie said: I remember when Azeem Rafiq made his claims about YCC there was a lot of victim blaming and "it's just banter".
Not the biggest surprise.
This is the same Rafiq who was accused of anti semitic remarks when he was younger, and also accused of exposing himself to women?Not the biggest surprise.
I don’t buy the institutional argument: as has been noted elsewhere in thread, there are plenty of alternative experiences which suggest that cricket isn’t a unitary behemoth. Likewise in Rafiq’s case it was fairly clear there *were* a couple of bad apples at Yorkshire (ie Hoggard) but that the wasn’t universal.
And re elitism etc that is just a product of a game where you need access to a large scale pitch and kit etc. it’s not the same as footie. The ‘problem’ is that that required commitment of resource just isn’t there, and that’s a problem for the long term popularity of the game, but disappearing up the arse of ‘institutional racism and elitism’ utterly misses the point.
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff