Cricket’s equality report highlights the issue with sport in state schools - Yorkshire Post Letters

In a recent article, Mark Ramprakash, one of English cricket's most prolific batters, reflected on the ICEC's report on equality in the game and the need for radical improvement. It reported on inequality by gender, race and class.

Ramprakash is well placed to comment, being the child of mixed-race parents who benefited from moving, at the age of eight, from an urban environment to Hatch End, in the outer reaches of north west London, where there was a cricket club and a park.

He is now director of cricket at Harrow School with its marvellous playing fields and indoor facilities. But he remains well aware of the inequality of opportunity that exists in schools as a whole.

To quote Ramprakash, ‘The report makes clear that the over-representation of privately educated people in the England team is an issue, which is unlikely to surprise many in the game. But it feels inevitable when private schools are able to invest in their facilities while those in state schools fall into ruin'.

He continues 'But you can’t criticise schools for producing fantastic environments – the challenge is to narrow that gap not by lowering the ceiling, but by raising the floor'.

As he implies, a lack of investment causes existing facilities to 'fall into ruin' and hinders the essential development of the game leaving the sentiments of the ICEC's report as empty words and nothing more.

Remember the great legacy that was promised after the 2012 London Olympics. And remember how the former Minister of Education, Margaret Thatcher, encouraged Local Education Authorities to sell off their playing fields to raise funds.

You might call it the 'law of unforeseen consequences' but many at the time saw it clearly as detrimental to both sport in state schools and the fitness of our children.