Can cricket spread reach beyond the white middle-class hunting ground?

For those at the sharp end, trying to make county cricket clubs reflect their local communities, these are challenging times. “Some clubs are clearly not going into the BAME communities and nurturing talent from diverse backgrounds,” says Chevy Green, director of the ACE (African Caribbean Engagement) programme. “They stick to what – and who – they know.”

Despite promises from the counties and the England and Wales Cricket Board that lessons from the Azeem Rafiq racism scandal have been learned, the new year hasn’t started well. At a hearing of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee this week, the chairman of Middlesex, Mike O’Farrell, attempted to explain why his club brought on just a handful of the black, Asian and minority ethnic players that make up 60% of the county’s 130 feeder clubs. O’Farrell, who later apologised, initially blamed the attraction of football and rugby to young people from Afro-Caribbean communities and the lure of education to those from south Asian backgrounds.

“It makes me so angry when I hear that,” says Green. “It’s cliched and it’s insulting to the BAME players and their families who travel all over the country and invest in the game only to be dropped before they can make a living from it.”

Green worked for Surrey’s charitable foundation before Ebony Rainford-Brent invited him to join her at ACE. “African-Caribbean participation in this country has fallen by 75% in the last 25 years. Just 1% of professional players are black. That’s a massive decline and it’s not because they don’t want to play. It’s because they have suffered racism and been made to feel unwelcome at mainstream clubs. It’s taken Ebony setting up ACE to start to reverse that. The clubs didn’t seem to even