The sociodemographic profile of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) talent pathways and first-class counties: considering the British South Asian player

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This study aimed to examine the sociodemographic profile of youth and professional cricketers in England and Wales, with a particular focus on the British South Asian (BSA) player.

Approach

Sociodemographic data was collected via an England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) survey to identify participants’ relative access to wealth via school type attended (i.e. state and private school) and ethnicity (i.e. White British, BSA, and Other)., findings were compared against expected distributions based on national norms.

Findings

Results highlighted socioeconomic and racial biases, predominantly favouring privately educated and white cricketers at both youth and professional levels. Specifically, whilst BSA cricketers were over-represented when compared to national norms at youth level, results indicated a reverse effect at Professional Status whereby BSAs become underrepresented.

Practical Implications

Disparities in socioeconomic and racial representation across the ECB talent pathways and first-class counties provides justification for key stakeholders to evaluate current practices, as well as consider designing interventions for more equitable opportunities for all.

Research Contribution

This study provides a quantitative analysis of the sociodemographic profile for talent pathways in first-class county cricket in England and Wales, highlighting socioeconomic and racial biases and offering considerations focussed on broadening opportunities for BSA players.

KEYWORDS:

• Talent identification
• talent development
• youth cricket
• professional cricket
• relative access to wealth
• ethnicity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).