8 ***^ Sunday 1 September 2019 The Sunday Telegraph
By Scyld Berry
CRICKET JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
One of the most exciting of all Ashes
series heads to Old Trafford – the score
1-1 with two to play, and England
having to avoid defeat if they are to
regain the urn – while two other Test
series have been going on in front of
two men and a dog, except the dog has
not been allowed in for health and
safety reasons.
West Indies are hosting India in the
second Test in Kingston, but nobody in
Jamaica appears to care that World
Test Championship points are at stake.
Sabina Park has been echoing emptily:
not even the sight of the heaviest Test
cricketer, the West Indian all-rounder
Rakheem Cornwall, has attracted spec-
tators. It was the same when Sri Lanka
hosted New Zealand in another two-
Test series. Administrators just do not
get it. There is nothing dramatic about
a two-Test series. Tickets, meanwhile,
for the first four days at Old Trafford
have sold out, as they were at Edgbas-
ton, Lord’s and Headingley.
Only a five-Test series allows for
drama like that which has been mount-
ing in the past month. The renewed
and paralysing grip of Steve Smith over
England, and the injury to James
Anderson, were followed by the resto-
ration in the balance of power in the
second Test when Jofra Archer floored
Smith. In the third Test England had to
make the most of Smith’s absence
through concussion, and they did, by
the narrowest possible margin, when
the disaster of 67 was followed by the
miracle of England’s highest-ever suc-
cessful run chase. As almost every
series in the new World Test Champi-
onship consists of two or three Tests,
this Ashes series would have finished
by now. Instead, Test cricket has pene-
trated the public consciousness in Brit-
ain as it has not since 2005.
Millions want to know what Smith,
and Archer, and above all Ben Stokes,
do next. These protagonists are com-
manding the stage at exactly the
moment when administrators would
Ashes dramatics highlight
Moving on up: Joe
Denly is expected to
open the batting for
England in the fourth
Test at Old Trafford
Sport Cricket
T
hanks to Jofra Archer,
England have an
African-Caribbean
star again. As if trying to
follow-up World Cup
triumph with Ashes glory
was not enough, Archer is already
being charged with trying to galvanise
interest from the African-Caribbean
community in cricket.
Yet in some ways Archer’s stunning
impact only highlights how rare
African-Caribbeans have become in
English cricket. England had nine
black Test debutants from 1981-1990,
but Archer is only the third black
cricketer to make his Test debut since
- Across the men’s county game,
the number of black professional
cricketers (excluding those classed as
overseas players) has fallen by 75 per
cent in the past 25 years – from 33 in
1994 to just nine in 2019, according to
research by Thomas Fletcher, from
Leeds Beckett University. Fletcher also
finds that there are just three black
cricketers in the women’s county
game.
“The reasons are so complex,” says
Ebony Rainford-Brent, who became
the first black cricketer to play for
England women in 2001. “There’s still
many barriers. There’s a disconnect in
terms of going to watch cricket.”
A fortnight ago, Reg Scarlett passed
away. While Scarlett played three Test
matches for the West Indies, perhaps
his great contribution to the sport was
creating Haringey Cricket College, in
Tottenham. This organised training
and matches for local boys – many of
whom were black – produced a
remarkable number of first-class
players and transformed the lives of
many who were a part of it. But
Haringey’s funding ran out in 2000
and, despite attempts to revive it, it has
essentially been defunct since.
“That opportunity was really a
breakthrough,” says Mark Alleyne,
who grew up in Tottenham, played for
Haringey and went on to play 10
one-day internationals for England. It
was “really difficult to get an
opportunity” in county cricket, but
Haringey played against county
second XIs, who could get “a direct
look at what you can do”.
Today, only one per cent of players
in the recreational game are African-
Caribbean, according to the England
and Wales Cricket Board; 3.4 per cent
of the population are black. The
percentage of coaches is said to be one
per cent. (This is self-reported data
only: in ECB surveys individuals are
not required to declare their ethnicity.)
Just 1.3 per cent of black people have
played cricket in the past year,
compared to 2.2 per cent of the white
British population.
“English cricket is still seen as
achingly white, achingly
establishment and thus, painfully not
something black kids want to get into,”
says David Lammy, the MP for
Tottenham, the constituency in which
Haringey Cricket College was situated.
“In the area that I’m from, south
London, I knew a lot of people –
whatever colour they were – in the
state system that didn’t have a clear
pathway into cricket,” reflects Kent’s
Daniel Bell-Drummond, who has
Jamaican parents and has played for
England Lions. “There’s a lot of issues
- a lot of them are socio-economic, and
a lot are to do with what people see in
front of them. They see Raheem
Sterling or whoever playing football.”
A lack of free-to-air television
coverage since 2005 has also made the
African-Caribbean community less
likely to engage with cricket,
according to Roland Butcher, who
became England’s first black Test
cricketer in 1981. “Caribbean people
growing up in England have not
grown up with that exposure to
cricket. Most of them probably don’t
know a lot about Caribbean cricket.”
Butcher laments “a really rapid
decline” from the 1980s, when he was
one of five black players in the
Middlesex team. Alleyne suggests that
the West Indies’ decline may have
made black children less inclined to
pursue cricket. Too often, Alleyne
believes, even the most talented young
black cricketers fail to be recognised.
“It just seems to be really difficult to
get into those academy systems. A lot
of black kids aren’t going to those
schools so they’re not really getting
the opportunity to get on the bottom
rung of the ladder.”
As Gloucestershire captain, Alleyne
led the county to eight one-day
trophies in five years, including an
unprecedented one-day treble in
- But he is also the most recent
member of a shockingly small club.
There have been only three black head
coaches in men’s county cricket.
It is believed that there has never
been a black head coach in either
women’s county cricket or the Kia
Super League. Alleyne was
Gloucestershire head coach for four
seasons, from 2004-07.
Though his team performed well in
limited-overs cricket – winning the
Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy in
2004, Division Two of the NatWest
Pro 40 in 2006, and reaching the T20
Cup final in his last season – he has not
had a county job since. He remains the
last black head coach in county
cricket. Since a seven-year stint as
head coach for the MCC, he has
applied for six coaching jobs,
including four in the county game, but
only got an interview at one, which
was outside county cricket. When he
applied for the Gloucestershire
assistant coach berth, he did not get
an interview.
“It really is difficult to get in front of
the chief execs and sell what you can
do,” he says. “I don’t think cricket is
great at recruiting – too much is done
behind closed doors.”
Alleyne believes black coaches
suffer from unconscious bias: they are
deemed a risk, because of the lack of
history of black coaches. Just as the
evidence is overwhelming that black
managers do not get the same chances
as white managers in football, so the
data suggests the same is true in
cricket. “There is a feeling that there
aren’t many black people in these
positions so no one’s got a history of
people doing well in it. Whether
subconsciously or consciously I think
some decisions are made on that
premise,” he says. Asked whether a
lack of experience is used to justify not
giving black coaches experience,
Alleyne laughs, sadly.
Butcher shares a similar belief: “I’d
question whether the establishment
has done enough to encourage
ex-black players into the profession. I
think they could have done more to
encourage those ex-players and keep
them in the game.”
Today, Fletcher finds that just two
out of 118 coaches and support staff
across the 18 first-class counties in
2019 are black. Only seven had a black
or ethnic minority background – six
per cent, compared to the 11 per cent
of the population who are BAME.
“There’s not anything you can
absolutely prove – maybe apart from
the numbers. I know people who have
resisted going into coaching because
they don’t think the opportunity will
be there,” Alleyne says. “I don’t think
people are deliberately blocking the
way, but I think other people get more
of a help up.”
He believes that plans to extend the
Rooney rule to county cricket –
mandating that all coaching positions
must interview one BAME coach – are
not sufficient. “It needs to be sorted
out from the bottom going up.”
The lack of diversity among
coaches, Alleyne says, reflects a
problem higher up. “If it is going to
change, there needs to be more
diversity on these boards to try and
understand what’s happening.”
None of the 41 members of the ECB
board are African-Caribbean. When
the ECB launched its South Asian
Action Plan last year, no African-
Caribbean plan was launched at the
same time. It is said to be a longer-term
goal. Bell-Drummond knows he was
lucky. He went to Dulwich Prep
School and then got a partial sports
scholarship to Millfield, benefiting
from the “ridiculous” facilities. Rather
than being predominantly about race,
he considers the paucity of black
cricketers today “definitely more of a
class issue”. Even from when he was
playing as a child, Bell-Drummond
believes that grassroots facilities
have declined. Today, only
one per cent of state-
educated 11-18-year-
olds regularly play
cricket, according to
the MCC
Foundation.
To give more
young boys and
girls – of all races
- a chance to play
cricket, Bell-
Drummond has
created the Platform
Initiative, which aims
to introduce cricket to
children in primary
schools in the north
Lewisham area. This summer, the
scheme reached 600 children. His old
school, Dulwich Prep, has said that
platform could use some of its
facilities in the future.
Bell-Drummond believes English
cricket has a chance to re-engage with
the African-Caribbean community
and beyond.
Archer, who already seems poised
to be England’s best ever African-
Caribbean cricketer, has provided
“such a window of opportunity”, says
Rainford-Brent. “The most important
thing is getting together with the
communities. A bit like they’ve done
with the south Asian community – sit
down and talk to them, ask how can
we re-engage and what you need. The
most important thing is having the
conversations.
“The overall thing is there needs to
be a strategy that the ECB put in place.
It needs to be a joined-up vision.” If
the moment is seized, it “could be a bit
of a revolution for African-Caribbean
cricket”.
“Let the people of Caribbean
culture know that this game is very
much alive,” Butcher urges. “They’ve
got to get the programmes out there,
get to school, market the sport and
attract people to play.”
Yet Archer should be the catalyst for
wider action to engage the African-
Caribbean community, not a
replacement for it. “There’s definitely
a big opportunity,” Bell-Drummond
reflects. “Hopefully, the powers at the
ECB can take advantage.
“I wouldn’t say I’m an optimist; I’m
more of a realist,” he says, when asked
if the number of African-Caribbean
cricketers in the English game will be
more in five years’ time. “If things
don’t change, I don’t expect the
number to change either.”
Tim Wigmore
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Young, gifted and black How England is failing African-Caribbean tale
Standard bearers:
(from left): Jofra
Archer, Daniel
Bell-Drummond,
Mark Alleyne and
Roland Butcher
Impact of new Test hero
only serves to highlight
shocking absence in game
of African-Caribbeans
33
African-Caribbean
cricketers
(excluding overseas
players) in men’s
county cricket
in 1994
there
are just
9
in the county
game today
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