From 'Old Supporter'

The failure of England to do well in Australia has been followed by a lot of knee jerk reactions. Perhaps the media need to look a bit deeper into the problems in English cricket rather than put forward ill-thought-out solutions.  

 When I attended a senior state school in Leek, Staffordshire. We had regular first and second-team cricket fixtures against other schools in the area and even some Colts matches. Despite being quite a small school with an average of 330 pupils. We held our own at cricket. Both Kim Barnett and Kevin Dean well known to Derbyshire supporters went to school at Leek.

All the other senior state schools in North Staffordshire played cricket as far as I am aware. I doubt if any state schools play cricket now in an area where cricket once thrived. I have not mentioned Derbyshire because I only moved to the county in the mid-70s but suspect the same applies. 

As a result of so many pupils playing cricket in north Staffordshire state schools. Local clubs had a steady stream of new players. Some even went on to play professional cricket at county and international levels. The list is quite long.  Nowadays young people’s interest in cricket is at a record low according to figures released by the ECB.

Many of the cricketers who play for England probably have got where they are by playing school cricket. Mostly at private fee-paying schools. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with that. But just think if state schools were a hotbed of cricket how much more intense would be the competition for places in county and international cricket.

Finding a joined-up solution for the almost complete loss of state school cricket in the area is extraordinarily difficult. We certainly need a national strategy to ensure more cricket at the schoolboy level is played. I acknowledge we will never get back to schools’ cricket as it was in my day but does that mean we have to give up?

It would be a start to appoint trained cricket organisers to use the near redundant park cricket facilities for age representative matches. Given incentives to do so schools that still have the space could restore pitches and play regular matches. All party backing by the government would help enormously. Also, an army of volunteers who are cricket enthusiasts would make a big difference.

At the rear of where I live a hard-surfaced cricket pitch has been laid, one of several in Derby parks. It rarely gets used and the only organised games I have seen have been between groups of young Asian players. After all, it is their national game for which they have a great passion. Perhaps the county club should adopt a very proactive approach to tapping into this source for potential academy players.

A few years ago, the likes of Shane Warne, Alec Stewart and somewhat grudgingly Justin Langer were all saying how much county cricket had improved since implementing the two-division structure. Even comparing it with Australian State Cricket. Since then, pitches have been allowed to deteriorate to suit seam bowling and nobody else. Derbyshire seems to be an exception to this rule. You need good wickets to produce good cricketers.

One piece of better news is the performance of the England Under 19s team in the world cup. Although India has dominated this competition in the past, I thought England might have pulled it off. They batted first in the final and started off thinking they needed to score 300 and played too many rash strokes. If they had aimed for 230 it would probably have been enough. Assuming George Rew continues to bat as he did in the final he should do well in the future. The same goes for Rehan Ahmed a leg-break bowler with good control. Several others showed a lot of promise.

Afghanistan nearly beat Australia in the third-place match in the under 19s world cup and went close when they played England. Makes you think that if we fail to get more young people playing cricket and competing for places in the national team are rankings will fall further in the future. A successful national side keeps the critics of county cricket quiet. Let’s face it we have done pretty well in white-ball cricket a standard that needs to be maintained along with an improvement in red-ball cricket.