New battlelines drawn in old dispute on discrimination in cricket

Two days after the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket released its report and recommendations, a friend of mine sat next to a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club at a non-cricketing lunch.

She had guessed that he was an MCC member because his hat sported a band of the club’s unmistakable red and yellow colors. They engaged in conversation about cricket and my friend mentioned the ICEC report.

He boomed, who do these people think they are? What do they know? Undeterred, my friend asked for his views on woman’s cricket, especially the commission’s recommendation for pay equality. She was greeted with a stare and a single word, “never.”

She ploughed on with some facts about inequalities and rising levels of interest in women’s cricket. This was countered with a comment that she was very well-informed.

Readers will be aware that the MCC governed cricket between 1787 and 1993, when these functions were transferred to the International Cricket Council and, domestically, to the Test and County Cricket Board. This was superseded in 1997 by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).

In 1999, the ECB published a Clean Bowl Racism report, which concluded that racism existed in cricket. Its chief executive officer said: “Complacency on racial equality is not acceptable. We must open our doors to everyone.”

Why is it, then, that, according to the ICEC findings, the same issue of racism, to which is now added sexism and classism, is still widespread, almost a quarter-of-a-century later?

In 1999, the England men’s Test team contained four players descended from South Asian and Caribbean immigrants. In this week’s team, there is one.

The first Black man to be selected for England was in 1980. He was born in