We have to get young, working-class people playing cricket again
Sarah Morgan finds out why Top Gear host Freddie Flintoff is going back to his cricket roots
It’s funny how life can be changed forever by one split decision – just ask Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff.
As a youngster, he played alongside Phil Neville for Lancashire’s junior team: “He was a year older than me and he was a cricketing genius,” Freddie later revealed during an interview with talksport. “If that lad would have carried on playing cricket he could have been England’s Ricky Ponting or Sachin Tendulkar, he was that good.
“He used to turn up, open the batting and score 100 every time and after that he’d bowl everyone out!”
Freddie went on to claim that Neville eventually had to choose between playing cricket or playing for Manchester United, and that had he taken up Lancashire’s offer, Freddie might not have been offered a spot with the county.
If that had happened, we might have missed out on seeing the man regarded as one of English cricket’s finest all-rounders in full flight – and that memorable Ashes victory over the Aussies in 2005 may not have taken place. Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?
But Freddie is now worried that an entire generation of working-class cricketers could be missing out on opportunities, albeit for a very different reason – he believes the game he loves so much is becoming increasingly elitist. “I made it to the highest level of cricket attending state schools on an estate in
Preston, but I can’t see many others doing that now,” says the former England captainturned-tv presenter.
“The vast majority of the England men’s national cricket team attended private school. Cricket is more elitist per head than rugby, rowing and the House of Lords.
“We’ve got to do something to get young, working-class people playing our national summer sport again. I really hope this series can demonstrate that, with some time and coaching, anyone can learn to love cricket and have the opportunities that came my way.”
Freddie is putting his money where his mouth is by setting up a team consisting of teenagers from some of the most under-privileged parts of his native Lancashire, the proviso being that they have never played the sport before.
Although all of them have shown athletic talent at school and beyond, none of them have considered cricket before, perhaps because finding somewhere to play is becoming increasingly difficult – in 2019, it was revealed that 155 school cricket pitches had been closed since 2010; a further 150 publicly-accessed pitches had also been sold off over the same period.
Freddie meets 15 year-old Sean, who has attended several different schools, and 17 year-old Ammar, who moved to the UK six years ago and had never even heard of Freddie. The boys have a lot to learn in a very short space of time as they will be competing against teams that have been playing together for years.
Most of these boys have never even picked up a cricket bat.
Keen to test their progress, despite just a few weeks of training and only a vague notion of the rules, Freddie’s boys play their first ever cricket match. Not everyone is impressed with the rural setting, or the traditions of cricket that Freddie loves.
Freddie hopes that by giving these youngsters a chance, they will continue to develop their skills and perhaps even follow in his footsteps. At the very least, they may find camaraderie and confidence while playing the sport he loves.
He [Phil Neville] was a cricketing genius... He used to turn up, open the batting and score 100 every time and after that he’d bowl everyone out!