Pevenseagull
meh
- Jul 20, 2003
- 20,436
I wonder how they're getting on with analysing the match data.
Princethorpe College is a Catholic, co-educational, HMC independent day school
Oddly, most county sides are dominated by ex-public school pupils - usually benefiting from said scholarships - except for the players from Lancashire, Durham and Yorkshire who are mainly state school.
Yes, that's the point I was making: the test side is dominated by ex-public school pupils because county sides are.
I don't see it as a dodgy statistic - it's something that's pretty factual - there was research only two years ago to back this up
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/e...eters-come-from-uk-state-schools-8695905.html
I was looking at the make-up of the 1979 England side (which got to the final of the WC). Three out of that 11 were privately educated: I doubt if any England team will get that low again.
By way of comparison, I was looking at the make up of the current South Africa team to see how many went to a state school. I did not think it would be very high, but the only one who was privately educated was Kyle Abbott! The rest went to fee paying state schools - the school system here is different in that there are different categories of state school, some non fee paying, some fee paying. Maritzburg College, for example, where David Miller and KP went, is a fee paying state school, it is not what would be termed a Public School in the UK.
The major difference between SA and the UK, I would guess, is the amount of cricket played at these state schools. At my son's school, they have 2 practice sessions a week and usually a match on Saturday's and sometimes on Wednesday afternoons. So far this year, he has played 9 matches in 8 weeks and had 16 practice sessions. That is a lot of cricket and he is only 10. Compare that to when I was at school in the UK, we had 1 session a week where we either practiced or played a match. If you wanted to play more cricket, you joined the local village team. The coaching at school was poor, as it was at the village sides!
There's a fair few in the England rugby union squad that went to public school and England are a competitive side - I don't think it makes any difference to be honest.
I can't quite get my head round the idea of a fee-paying state school. What's the difference between free schools and ones you pay for - why pay if they're the same?
The trouble is that these days you'll be lucky to play any cricket at school. Very few state schools play the game and, while it's possible to join a club, you'll be lucky to play every week. My son's club had six or seven games all season - the rest were cancelled because of a shortage of players.
That's what I meant by the bias towards private schools. It's not because I'm anti private schools but it strikes me that sporting talent is generally spread pretty evenly. I can't believe and don't believe that innate cricketing ability resides only in the well-off and we need to find a way to spot talent among the wider population, not just the seven percent