Numbers that just don't add up for school cricket

With shortages of funds and fields, it's seen as the preserve of a private elite - so how does the sport galvanise its grassroots?

- Malik Ouzia

A FEW years ago, the film director Steve McQueen invited every year three pupil in London to have their photograph taken for an exhibition later showcased at the Tate. The result was a snapshot of a generation, one that highlighted the extraordinary level of diversity among the capital’s schoolchildren: there have been Olympic opening ceremonies and meetings of the UN’s general assembly without such a mix.

Those pictures sprang to mind when reading the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket’s bleak assessment of the sport’s decline in state schools this week. There were headline figures, like the fact that the number of state schools entering competitions has dropped by a third in 20 years, and pointed anecdotes, like the one from a parent whose child was invited to take part in a county’s three-day “holiday” training camp, only to find it was scheduled during state school term time.