Martin-Jenkins C: English Youth Cricket (31May94)

Advisory panel's work must not go by the board

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins

Articles on youth cricket tend to arouse strong passions, because so many care so much about it. My plea last week not just for a review of the many and confusing interests and organisations, but also for action to streamline it all, preferably in time for the new UK Cricket Board's formation next year, elicited various reactions. The Test and County Cricket Board affirmed that the appointment of their new public relations manager, Richard Little, was more important than adding further to the officials involved in looking after the grass roots (the National Cricket Association). It is accepted, of course, that a positive and professional presentation of the game to press and public is very important and all should wish the new man, formerly an experienced and respected executive of Texaco, good fortune in promoting a national game which in most respects is healthy and as popular as it has ever been. It is, indeed, an indication of the need for an overhaul of the TCCB's public relations both that their new appointment was "announced" through a brief press release, missed by many, and also that they have not made more of the fact that these crucial matters of youth and county second XI cricket have already been the subject of detailed review. Nothing is more important, cricket being a game which sells itself once anyone with an eye for a ball has the chance to play it, than giving that chance to as many as possible. Further examples could be given of deprivation in state schools and of local authority courses offering almost any sport but cricket. But hear also these heartening facts from Hubert Doggart's trenchant introduction to the 1994 handbook of the English Schools Cricket Association (ESCA).

1. This year there will be more than 1,000 intercounty matches played by children aged nine to 11. Not so long ago there were no such games.

2. More competitions and more coaching courses are now run for schools than ever before, due to ESCA's drive, the support of many sponsors and the devotion of the NCA coaches.

3. ESCA is working in harmony with the TCCB, NCA, Headmasters Conference Schools (HMC) and others to develop the excellence of young cricketers.

Up to the age of 19, young cricketers in the UK more than hold their own in representative matches against overseas opponents of the same age. The under-19's 0-1 defeat in Sri Lanka last winter, for example, was the first against anyone since 1991. Support for youth cricket is all the more laudable for the fact that the vast majority of those who give so much time do so without recompense.

There are, too, schools of true excellence, like Cumnor House, the preparatory school in Surrey which has produced, among other good cricketers, Alastair Brown of Surrey, Alan Butcher's sons Mark and Gary, both now professionals, and David Sales, the prolific batsman already seized by Northamptonshire at the age of 15. At Cumnor the cricket master, Martyn Lewis, has keen boys practising at 8am, teaches his boys etiquette as well as technique and fields 12 XIs each week from the ages of eight to 13. For the likes of Sales, the only problem over the next few years of what he hopes will be his progression to the England team, will be which of the many clubs, associations and representative bodies he should play for without overdoing it. Then, when his exams are taken and he becomes a regular professional, how does he avoid languishing in the second XI like too many promising young county players? Exams themselves can be a problem. A university education is desirable, because no-one can be sure that he will make a successful living from cricket alone, but it will not necessarily advance his county prospects, and certainly not if those who wish to deprive Oxbridge of first-class status have their way. (They seem not to see that, without the additional spur provided by the kudos of playing first-class cricket, standards would rapidly decline and counties would soon drop the fixtures. It would be a case of approaching the problem from the wrong end.) In January 1992 Mike Vockins of Worcestershire, chairman of the TCCB committee responsible for county second XI cricket, also chaired a new committee known as the National Advisory Panel for the Development of Young Cricketers. It recommended (and the TCCB endorsed the ideas) a "cricketing ladder" showing a clear progression for any promising young player, and liaison between any organisation like ESCA wanting to pick the boy and a trusted adviser, who might be a parent, schoolmaster, club coach or county manager. The panel recognised on one hand that more young people play cricket and remain in the game as adults than in any other country; on the other, that excessive demands are placed on promising players. "As a consequence," the panel reported, "some lose their way in the game; others lose their enthusiasm and, as a result of playing too much cricket in a concentrated period, may lose form or suffer injuries because heavy demands are made on physiques which have not yet matured." Recommendations are one thing, action another. Until the new board is constituted, either Vockins' second XI committee, also very concerned by the increasing numbers of overseas players at every level of the recreational game, or Mike Smith's development committee, needs to see that the Advisory Panel's work was not wasted.

(Thanks : The Daily Telegraph)