Racism and Cricket

[Etienne]

I think we'll be hearing a lot about Type K in the future.

[Flynnie]

Type K will make it about themselves, as usual, but there at least exists one way to get to them, which is to point out that the reason England struggle to win the fucking Ashes despite having more than twice the population of Australia is precisely because of what's in the report.

I wouldn't call Australian cricket perfect by any means, but it is very clearly a people's game there, and the elitism of English cricket is what makes it uncompetitive against Australia.

[Flynnie]

County academies and pathways being pay-to-play is absurd and a direct cause of a lot of issues. What are those fucking 19th century relics doing with all that TV money?

[George C.]

Pumping it into pointless higher wages and promotion of 'fake' cricket..

[Satchmo Distel]

ECB is recommending a big fine and points deductions for Yorkshire.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...ine-commission

[Flynnie]

https://www.mikemarqusee.co.uk/69-in...al-englishman/

this is one of the best essays I have ever read, and really illustrates the problem in cricket and how disgustingly awful it has been for a long time. I mean, so bad that Norman Tebbit comes off as one of the better people discussed in this.

[Satchmo Distel]

It's probably gone even further backwards: how many black and Asian batters and fast bowlers of the quality of Butcher, Hussain, Ramprakash, DeFreitas, Cowans, Lawrence etc are pushing for England places now? The team is whiter now than at any time I can recall since the early 80s. The only BAME presence has been spin and even that would have been Leach had he been fit. Archer was the exception but his fitness has been mismanaged apparently.

[San Bernardhinault]

It certainly feels like almost all the Asian-origin representation at test level recently has been spinners. And also that they have more issues and get dicked around by the team more than anyone else. Maybe I'm being unfair?

[Seven Saxon Kings]

It certainly feels like almost all the Asian-origin representation at test level recently has been spinners. And also that they have more issues and get dicked around by the team more than anyone else. Maybe I'm being unfair?

Oh it’s true all right, although looking at county cricket you could certainly argue that being a spinner is the bigger factor there than being Asian.

[Etienne]

What has happened to black cricket and black cricketers in the UK is a disgrace and a damn shame. Bell-Drummond is about the only black player who has come through domestically in recent years (unlike Jordan and Archer). Asian cricketers are about as well represented now as they ever have been at the top level, though they are dramatically under-represented compared to where they should be given the player base at every other level.

This obviously also applies to administrators, umpires and coaches. I'm delighted that Glamorgan have given Mark Alleyne a white ball coaching job, but the idea that a white guy with his CV would have been unemployed for so long is laughable.

[Flynnie]

DBD (who scored a triple century today) is 29, he ain’t young. He’s been playing county cricket for a decade.

also he has a higher first class average than Zak Crawley, who averages 28.5 in thirty five Tests. A lower average than Michael Carberry, who got told to fuck off and never come back after six Tests.

Guess whose plutocrat dad bought him a place in the England team, and guess which two are black and working class. As a Lewisham man, I am angry about this.

[Flynnie]

It certainly feels like almost all the Asian-origin representation at test level recently has been spinners. And also that they have more issues and get dicked around by the team more than anyone else. Maybe I'm being unfair?

No not at all, the report mentions positional stereotyping. It is absolutely not a coincidence that a lot of England’s black Test cricketers were quicks and a lot of their Asians spinners.

It’s kind of a miracle, or perhaps evidence of how badly cricket is run in other countries too, that England are remotely competitive given the intellectual laziness of the cricket establishment. They’ve gotten exactly what they’ve deserved with this report.

[Levin]

Given that the ECB thinks the domestic setup is purely there as a place to develop England cricketers, what's the point of proposing points deductions for Yorkshire?

What's the purpose of points deductions at all in a closed shop system? Everyone is very keen to be seen doing something. Let's just get through the next week when the wider world is looking at us and then we can go back to normal.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Type K may refer to:
Type K thermocouple
Type K Star
The type K power plug used in Denmark

[DCI Harry Batt]

Why aren't the ECB calling for Yorkshire to be disbanded?

[George C.]

Lolz.

Shocking as their county's record has been.

Somewhat more objective to continue in their current form and pay penance through ongoing mediocrity, for the foreseeable.

[Etienne]

Because it would be immensely destructive to the game, and not help deal with racism at all?

As the report lies bare, and as we know from other counties (especially Essex), racism is institutional in cricket. Yorkshire may have been mildly worse than other counties but as it is only through Rafiq's courage and persistence that we know about it at all it may be that what happened there is/was commonplace elsewhere.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I mean even the Brits understood that the RUC had to go, it didn't mean there were no longer any cops in the six counties. Rhodesia had to end, as did apartheid South Africa, the places weren't washed into the sea though.

[Etienne]

OK, so explain the process you are suggesting? Would there still be an organisation called Yorkshire playing county cricket? How would it be constituted?

[Kevin S]

So I can see how at the professional level you could disband all the counties and you would likely end up with franchise or Premier League style competition for elite cricket.

Would that be a problem for the professional game, or England? Not really, in my opinion. Massive loss of tradition, break with history, etc etc. But shit happens, and if the names are tainted beyond repair, then perhaps we need to start again. Even if it was a problem, is that actually a problem, if you see what I mean? The issues currently blighting the pro game are bigger than the problems you'd face in reorganising it.

Ultimately what I want the pro game to do is get people paying to watch cricket, support a team, get into playing, and - of course, this being the main purpose - for England to beat Australia.

Would it be a problem for the development of young cricketers? That's the big money question for me. Make the game properly diverse and inclusive. It could be a positive if we are able to remove links from public schools and elite universities to the counties themselves. The racism and sexism in the game are massive issues but I would add to that the fact that around half of pro cricketers went to public schools, compared to 7% of the population. That's another big driver of a lack of diversity and perpetuates the old boys' club.

So it would need a new way of thinking about the pathways between local amateur clubs, their youth setups, schools, the ECB and the professional game (and their "academies").

[Kevin S]

OK, so explain the process you are suggesting? Would there still be an organisation called Yorkshire playing county cricket? How would it be constituted?

TBF I don't think it behoves Ton Ton to address the question of what alternative to the county system pro cricket in England could use. He's just pointing out that it could/should be replaced by something less discriminatory.

[Cousin Boneless]

DBD (who scored a triple century today) is 29, he ain’t young. He’s been playing county cricket for a decade.

also he has a higher first class average than Zak Crawley, who averages 28.5 in thirty five Tests. A lower average than Michael Carberry, who got told to fuck off and never come back after six Tests.

Guess whose plutocrat dad bought him a place in the England team, and guess which two are black and working class. As a Lewisham man, I am angry about this.

That is some accusation.

[Etienne]

Yeah, I don't think Ton Ton has to provide an alternative, I just want to know what he means by disband Yorkshire. The county (in cricket terms)? The organisation?

[Etienne]

The Marqusee article is brilliant by the way. What a loss to cricket his death was.

[Satchmo Distel]

Abolish public schools, or make their cricket resources open to state school kids. End any kind of pay to play. I think the reform of counties needs to be coupled with a structural reform of the class system in education. Make any money the counties receive from the ECB dependent on how much outreach they do.