Wisden Cricketers Almanack
4.45 1 SCHOOLS CRICKET IN 2018 QPM REVIEW BY DOUGLAS HENDERSON After the hottest and driest summer since 1976 (when a hosepipe ban had come into force early in the season, and schools played on dustbowls) it was hard to recall the wet start. Matches were called off days in advance, and the first two rounds of the National T20 Cup were ravaged. But it turned into a glorious summer for schools cricket. Or so it might, had not the pressure of exams grown unbearable. The impression was that, though schools understandably pushed their students to work hard, it was in fact parents who drove the agenda. At one school, a senior master – who should have known better – refused to let his son play, or even practise, for the first XI during the five-week GCSE period. Elsewhere, a cricket master, when asked whether parents were incensed at paying vast fees for a summer term which barely existed, said complaints only arose when he insisted pupils play matches. Many schools reported it was almost impossible to field their best XI. This, surely, is madness – though whether anyone is prepared to stop it is unclear. Another cricket master spoke for most, perhaps, when he wrote “The season was as short as usual, and marred by other school withdrawals and exam disruption. But we soldier on in the hope that someone will save schools cricket one day!” sI’ve changed the quotation a The last word on this goes to David Elstone, chairman of the school sports little… committee of the HMC (the body representing many of the UK’s independent schools): It’s a real crisis for the future of cricket in this country.
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