JUNIORS: GRASSROOTS AND GREEN TOPS
How has the path changed for the aspiring, young cricketers of tomorrow? It’s a different world, writes Matt Cleary, but it still often starts at the humble club.
The cricket world may have changed, but the dream still starts at the local club, writes Matt Cleary.
The Australian cricket “pyramid” in which talent is funnelled upwards from the teeming multitudes in junior cricket to the top golden bricks of the Test team was once, in the main, a three-tiered affair with metropolitan clubs the bedrock. Clubs took in teenagers, played them with and against men in one of five grades, and thus forged state and national team players. The metropolitan competitions were the strongest in the world. And for generations, the system worked a treat.
When Mark Taylor was 17, he won a game for Northern Districts by hooking angry Len Pascoe for six. There are countless tales like it, and only the special ones – Warner, Ponting, Clarke, Hughes – came into the national team without a long, hard grounding in club cricket.
But times change. And the pyramid has been recast. Cricket Australia’s website now has a quadrilateral with an arrowhead on top. It’s called a “pathway”. It’s a slideshow presentation with multiple levels.
CA describes the bottom chunk as “Foundation”: junior comps, “barbecues, backyards & beaches”, something sponsored by a supermarket. Metro grade clubs form the bottom blocks of the middle section where “potential is identified”. Though they play in “Premier” leagues, clubs are seen as co-equal
with national youth competitions (under-13s, U/15s, etc), and subservient to second XI fixtures and “high performance” academies.
The fruits of CA’s program will be better reported upon come 2025-26, or thereabouts, given the first alumni of the most recent iteration of the pathways program are barely shaving. And anyway, it seems that something has been working, at least in NSW.
David Warner came from
Matraville housing commission to open the batting with Ed Cowan of Point
Piper. Josh Hazlewood busted out of Bendemeer, Mitchell
Starc from the Hills (district),
Pat Cummins from Blue
Mountains base camp. In the main, if you’re good enough, and want it enough, they’ll find you.
The system isn’t perfect.
Private schoolboys still play first XI cricket on Saturdays and thus rarely against men. In southern states, the AFL whale makes off with talented teens. In Queensland, it’s rugby league and humidity.
The gripe is that, for the guys who make it, few ever play for the clubs that made them. Club types feel disrespected. They’ll tell you the comp is weak; that kids aren’t being tested by first-class hardmen. Instead of playing club cricket, top players are rested because of the “workload” of second XI fixtures watched by two men and no dog.
According to Manly Warringah DCC president, Andrew Fraser, while clubs don’t like it, they do largely accept it.
“The world’s changed from 10 years ago, even five years ago,” he says. “It used to be about winning premierships. Now Premier clubs have to reassess their role. It’s every club’s charter to develop people for higher honours.”
Fraser is uniquely positioned
“THE WORLD’S CHANGED FROM 10 YEARS AGO, EVEN FIVE YEARS AGO … IT’S EVERY CLUB’S CHARTER TO DEVELOP PEOPLE FOR HIGHER HONOURS.”
to comment. As well as being Manly chief, he’s the manager of Starc, Stephen O’Keefe, Meg Lanning, Alyssa Healy, the Edwards brothers, Mickey and Jack, and a kid called Ollie Davies they reckon will play for Australia.
Fraser says Manly has been the best at developing juniors and is now a victim of their own success. “We’ve won the club championship five times in the last 20 years, more than any other club, plus the first-grade premiership in 2015. But we haven’t made the finals since. Our talent ID and pathways system has been so good, it’s started to cripple the club as a premiership force.”
Fraser says the club has resisted recruiting from outside the catchment, preferring to bring up local juniors, some of whom he describes as “arguably once in a generation”. “The issue is that as soon as they start performing, they’re off. And as a club, like all clubs, we just have to suck it up. That’s the system now.”
Everyone wants to win, of course. Manly, though, on any given Saturday, could have 15 percent of players taken out of team lists due to “pathway” cricket. Fraser says the clubs are largely OK with young players getting
opportunities. The disconnect comes when a player is banned from playing because of “workload”.
“It’s a big issue,” says
Fraser. “Mickey Edwards and Ryan Hadley both played in a recent second
XI game; then were both banned from playing on
Saturday. That’s our first-grade opening bowling attack.
“And if they’re not playing, it affects every grade. From a Premier cricket catchment of 55 players, take out eight or ten and it’s a big whack that filters right through the grades.”
Switching hats, though, Fraser is more sanguine. “[Rep cricket] is a wonderful opportunity for the players. It means guys won’t fall through the cracks. The cream rises to the top. There are more opportunities than ever now.
“And if someone says to me in 10 years’ time, ‘Frase, we haven’t won a premiership but we’ve got three or four guys in the Test team,’ I’d take that every day of the week.
“That’s our job; develop players and provide them with the best possible environment to achieve higher honours.”
Manly does plenty right. Their social media operation is best practice. They give value to sponsors. In Fraser and his team, they have professional administrators running a semi-pro club. And their pathways program pits men against boys.
Fraser reckons – and admits “some will disagree” – that CA’s Pathways system is producing quality cricketers. He points to 19-year-old Davies’ three first-grade centuries this summer. He points to Jack Edwards, also 19, fast-tracked into the NSW squad, though his Premier cricket numbers were modest.
“Jack was plucked out of under-19s and it was a bit controversial. But he’s now the youngest person ever in Australia to make a Shield and domestic one-day hundred. He played in the Sheffield Shield final last year and said it was the hardest cricket he’d ever played.
“Point is, there are now opportunities for young blokes that were never there in past eras. Only time will tell if these guys come through this system and end up being superstars. But I’m confident plenty will.”
“GUYS WON’T FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS. THE CREAM RISES TO THE TOP. THERE ARE MORE OPPORTUNITIES THAN EVER NOW.”