In search of the new generation

Walking hand in hand with Jessica, it was not the beautiful blue sky or the warm air that caught my initial attention but rather the lack of youngsters running around with a cricket bat and ball in their hand. On a perfect London morning, there were kids everywhere playing on the slides and swings, eating packets of crisps and ice-creams and kicking around a football in their favourite football tops.

With cricket season well and truly upon us I was surprised at the lack of kids playing the summer sport of kings. I found it interesting to see so many young aspiring Michael Owens and David Beckhams running riot with a ball attached to their feet with not one Darren Gough or Graham Thorpe 'wannabe' in sight.

This morning's park scene was very foreign to me as in Australia it is hard to drive a mile without seeing a mini test match being played out between kids of all shapes and sizes. In the summer cricket is huge, being our number one sport, followed with the same proud interest as Aussie Rules football is in the winter. The local parks, beaches and front gardens provide the ideal setting for an Ashes Test match or World Cup one-day international.

Australia is not unlike many of the other countries I have visited throughout my cricket career. I remember the two occasions that I visited Colombo in Sri Lanka. Both times it was exciting to see the masses of people playing cricket along the esplanade on a Sunday morning outside the city centre. In Pakistan cricket is played in every spare open space, just as it is in India and the shantytowns of South Africa.

Although basketball is taking its toll on numbers in the West Indies, there are cricket games running everywhere you look. In the poorer parts of these countries, the facilities aren't anything like the beautiful park that I was in this morning and the bat is often a lump of wood or a piece of plastic piping, but nevertheless cricket is alive and well.

In this country football seems to rule the minds of everyone from the kids to their parents. The kids' heroes seem to play for Manchester United or Arsenal rather than Lancashire, Middlesex or even England.

I know many of the county clubs are trying to address this situation as they work overtime to take cricket to the schools around the country. At Middlesex there is a concerted effort to increase the number of children playing or at least interested in the game.

Two days before the World Cup commenced, Middlesex ran a day of Quick Cricket for the local schools. On this particular Saturday morning there must have been two hundred kids and their parents playing cricket in coloured clothing around the Southgate cricket fields.

It was a magical sight seeing young boys and girls having a fantastic time hitting sixes, taking spectacular catches and bowling Darren Gough yorkers. Even though it was a fairly normal stage for me, I was thrilled to be involved in such a positive exhibition of kids just having fun. Starting at the ground roots level can only help in the future development of English cricket, which is currently taking a battering at all levels in comparison to many other regions and codes.

If the 'big boys' can somehow improve their overall rating in both forms of the games, the game of cricket can only prosper in England. In my opinion, this should be the major priority for those people with the job of keeping our great game alive and well in this country.

England bowing out of the World Cup is more damaging than just the disgrace and disappointment of losing. Unfortunately another perfect opportunity to bring the game to the masses has been ruined by the host nation performing poorly in the crucial games.

The international players have a major role to play in keeping the traditions of the game attractive and strong. Hopefully it will be this responsibility that spurs on the players to find the answers to how they can perform more consistently for their country, and for the sake of the game.

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