The number of county cricketers from an ethnic minority has risen sharply in recent seasons, predominantly players with a South Asian heritage. Samit Patel, whose career started in 2002,  now the game’s 2nd senior pro, Chris Jordan and Keith Barker among the players who started before 2010, though the increase above is mainly from younger players starting out rather than careers lengthening.

Ethnic minorities previously under-represented but  now no more? Going back the 1991 census gives around 10% aged 0-4   from a Black or South Asian background, a figure close to the numbers playing county cricket in 2015, although allowing for  migration  some way under that for the wider population then. In the 2021 census the 18-24’s from an ethnic minority were around 20%, county cricketers under the age of 25 last summer 29/162, 18%.

What  differences in the %s are reasonable is hard to know, with of the order of  350-400,000  (male) births in a year it’s not obvious that in every occupation the numbers  should be close.  Around  30-40 openings each year in county cricket: the numbers of recreational players  reason  for thinking the ethnic minorities might be  or should be a higher %; pushing the numbers the other way the sizeable  differences between ethnic groups going to University and the alternative career prospects that follow.

Most players in the county game  are either related to someone who played first-class cricket,  or have been educated at a fee-paying school. It’s in the family blood, or the bank accounts. This is also true of those that come froman ethnic minority,  those that have started in recent years included. A trend to lead to  increasing  numbers of state-educated, ‘working-class’ boys in the game? Going by the numbers here not by much, if at all.