This is a tale from beyond finishing schools of inner-city talent, passion and dedication being rewarded with an opportunity
A few years back I wrote in these pages about the death, or rather enforced euthanasia, of Lewisham cricket, another minor stage in the sport’s retreat from city centres. This was the mournful news that Kent County Cricket club had decided to “merge”, ie disband, the Lewisham district cricket team, handing it over to a neighbouring borough of similar size, with the result that a junior cricketer in a London borough of 350,000 people, the population of Iceland, would have no immediate entry to representative cricket.
It was hardly a surprise or even really anyone’s fault. The counties don’t have much money. The inner cities are increasingly no-go zones for the summer game. Scroll through the county squad lists or recent England Test debutants and the home counties are powerfully present, London largely absent.
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Related: The Spin | Welcome to the Death of Inner City Cricket Part Two: the autopsy | Barney Ronay
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