There are currently two Black cricket players in the England men’s national squad.
Both of these players are originally from Barbados.
The number of Black professional cricket players in the UK has declined by 75 per cent in the last 25 years, and is at less than one per cent at the recreational level.
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Grassroots cricket group, ACE Programme is on a mission to reverse this figure and encourage more young Black people to take up the sport.
ACE Programme director, Chevy Green, who’s coached with Surrey County Cricket club for over eight years, said he was initially hesitant to get behind the project before he joined.
” I have a love hate relationship with cricket,” Mr Green told MyLondon.
(Image: ACE Programme)
He added: “For me, this programme, the reason I got more involved with it, I had an internal discussion at Surrey about a young Black boy, he was 15, similar background to myself, from a state school and he got dropped out of the Surrey team for a silly reason, he was talented kid.
“When I heard his story and the aftercare of what happened, I thought 15 years on this is the same stuff I went through, my brother went through it and my friends went through it.
“With cricket it seems there’s a race thing, but it’s more a class thing. It’s always the state school kids, the Black and Asian kids, who always seem to get dropped.”
Mr Green said he was sceptical about whether the game he had found to have issues with race and class could actually support a programme that would be committed to bring Black players into the sport.
ACE Programme launched in January 2020 with Mr Green spearheading with chairwoman Ebony-Jewel Rainford-Brent, a former England player.
The team got to work developing Black talent through the programme as well as holding their community development hubs for young people of all ethnic backgrounds in South London areas Southwark, Lambeth and Croydon.
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On getting more Black young people into cricket, Mr Green said a major key was “visibility.”
“We’re showing that black players do play cricket,” Mr Green said.
He continued: “Players in our academy, they’re in an environment where loads of Black people are playing, normally if they go to a club environment they’re the only Black kid. So they start to believe maybe Black people don’t play cricket.
“But when they come to our programmes and we’re playing music, a lot of the times I’ve got my hat on backwards, we’re high performance coaches, but the way we relate to kids, it’s more relatable to them because we come from a similar background, they feel more at ease.
“We’re showing them there are people who look like you, come from a similar background, lived on a estate, that cricket is a game for you.
“We want cricket to reflect society and the community you’re in.”
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Currently over 50 young people are part of ACE which stands for Afro-Caribbean Engagement and also Accelerated Change Empowerment.
The youngest player is nine-years-old and the oldest is 19. In a short space of time the programme has already seen one of their players join the county system at Under 18s level.
Mr Green said one of the biggest challenges to reversing the decline in Black cricket players at a professional level is the structure of the “county” system which selects a large majority of players from private schools.
” A lot of the people we’re engaging , they’re from a lower socioeconomic background, those white, Black, brown kids have the same problems,” Mr Green said.
He added: “We’re trying to provide opportunity and in a short space of time we’ve highlighted a problem, and found a solution – a targeted talent ID programme with a grassroots element going into school and community to attract young people then from there get them into the county programme.”
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On the future of Black players in cricket, Mr Green who comes from a cricketing family said it’ll be “years” before a difference is seen in the decline at the professional level but is confident that Black players can get into the game.
“If other sports can get Black talent represented through, cricket must be able to, there’s Black talent in all walks of life, we can definitely do it,” Mr Green added.
He added: “Once we get the players coming through and we can showcase then parents will cease the opportunity for their children and the kids will see it as an opportunity.”
To find out more about the joining the ACE Programme, click here.