So often, inclusion is just another word for thoughtfulness. Until last year the training sessions for the juniors at East Lancashire Cricket Club used to be held midweek after school. It’s a time when a lot of the cricket-loving families in Blackburn are usually at mosque.
One of the first things Farouk Hussain did when he got involved was suggest that the club move the sessions to Saturday mornings. Hussain, a school teacher who runs the local Chance to Shine street programme, knows the area well, and he knows its south Asian demographic even better. Along with the training change, he persuaded those who ran the club to drop their £50 upfront membership fee to a tenner and institute a weekly training supplement of £3.
“I said, for a family with two or three children, the parents working low-paid jobs, you’re scaring them away,” said Hussain. “If you have an understanding of the community in which you’re operating, the benefits are immediate.”
Immediate is the word. Since Hussain got involved with East Lancashire CC at the start of this season, youth participation has soared. A club struggling to assemble age-group teams was suddenly inundated: 177 new recruits since April, and more signing up every week. Many joined direct from street cricket, where they’ve learned to play with a tapeball in a school sports hall.
“At least 80% of the kids in that programme are Asian heritage,” says Hussain, “but a lot of the traditional cricket clubs are still governed by non-Asian volunteers, so it can be daunting for a family when there are no other brown faces there.” The difference at East Lancashire has been the recognisable figure of Hussain himself, who has become a sort of pied piper of the local cricket scene. “It’s a reassurance from the parents’ point of view,” agrees Hussain. “They know you’re familiar with their child, and a safe, friendly face.”
Hussain’s contribution is only one of a whole host of recent efforts stemming from Lancashire CCC that aim to better engage the cricket-loving south Asian community, and to help redress the imbalance that leaves them still so under-represented at elite levels. In Haseeb Hameed (now at Nottinghamshire), and Saqib Mahmood (born in Birmingham), the county can already claim to have nurtured two of the brightest young British-Asian talents in the England setup; there was even a chance, before Mahmood’s side-strain in this weekend’s county game, that they might have appeared together in the Old Trafford Test.
But the county know they can and must do more, and the post-Covid restructure of the club has reflected that emphasis, with James Cutt appointed in the newly created role of club and community cricket manager last year. This summer saw the test launch of the Community Talent Champion project, an England and Wales Cricket Board pilot running in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Leicestershire that aims to unearth young talent from outside the traditional structure, using open trials.
So far around 60 young players have been identified by the scheme, for which anyone not already involved in representative age-group cricket is eligible. “It’s trying to reach out and break down some of the cultural barriers that cause young people from south Asian communities to think that a future in cricket isn’t for them,” says Cutt, who has been with the club 13 years. Those barriers include factors both perceived and actual, from the cost of equipment to the dearth of Asian coaches, from familial expectations to parents too busy working to be able to invest time in their children’s pursuits.
And then, of course, there are valid concerns about historical prejudice. For one parent, for instance, whose sons are two of the new young members at East Lancashire CC, traditional club cricket now feels a very different prospect from the scene he encountered as a teenager 20 years ago. “We used to feel that we got totally different treatment,” he says. “Asian kids were left in the nets doing their own thing, where a white kid got all the coaches’ attention.”
When his nextdoor neighbour, whom everyone agreed was the brightest talent in their team, was never able to progress in the game, “that broke us”, he says; he stayed away from club cricket for years afterwards. Even today he stays with his sons at all their sessions, to be sure they are treated fairly. “I don’t want them to go through the heartbreak I went through.”
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Thoughtfulness is what’s needed: attention paid to the small but important details, such as asking local councils to cut the grass more often where parks cricket is played. On one recent coaching course, when a woman was about to drop out because she wasn’t comfortable speaking English, the course providers added an extra trainer who spoke her native tongue; she now has her level 2 qualification and is coaching at her local club.
But there’s a demand for investment in infrastructure too; a comparative lack of facilities in Lancashire’s built-up areas remains one of the chief obstacles to increased south Asian involvement, and one Cutt is determined to address. “That might mean adding non-turf pitches to parks,” he says, “or it might mean helping nomadic teams find a permanent site.” Six new development centres being launched this month will offer training across the winter at locations across the county, and bursaries will be made available. “Wherever you’re from, whatever your circumstance, you’ll be able to take part,” says Cutt, who hopes it will integrate many new players into the county’s talent pathway.
At East Lancashire CC, the youngsters have a more immediate concern than winter nets. Their under-nines team are in contention for the divisional title after only five months in existence. “To come out of nowhere and get the kids performing like this, it’s incredible,” one parent says. “This is what multiculturalism can be, everyone working together like one big family.”