The American Spectator

home
ADVERTISEMENT
Print Email
Text Size

At Large

Cricket and Political Correctness

By on 1.13.11 @ 6:08AM

English “public school boys” save the day for a British sport and British education.

This is a story about cricket and government schools. You may not care much about cricket, but what it tells us about the latest developments in England’s state funded schools may be of interest to all.

My source for the following is an old friend called John Graham. He went to Eton and St. Paul’s (private schools) and was once a promising young cricketer himself. We went to university at the same time. Then he worked as a correspondent for the Financial Times. He still lives in London, and he follows the international cricket news as keenly as he ever did. If something unusual happens, he is likely to send me an email.

Readers should know that the leading international cricket contest, going back to the 19th century, is between England and Australia. Recently the English cricket team, touring down under in the winter months (their summer), decisively beat the Australians and won the “test” series. As the Australian team has done well in recent years this English victory was considered noteworthy and John Graham duly emailed me. But he also sent me some far more unusual news.

Half the victorious English team consisted of former “public school boys,” he wrote. That’s confusing terminology, I know. In England, “public school” refers to a private, fee-paying school, such as Eton or Harrow, St. Paul’s or Winchester.

Half the team! I used to be a big cricket fan in the England of the 1950s, and when I think back to the English team of that time, there might have been but one player who had received a private-school education.

In football terms, it’s about like hearing that the New England Patriots are nowadays drawing some of their most promising talent from the Harvard and Yale football teams.

So what happened in England? What about the other school boys, the vast majority, who go to state schools and then, if they show promise, are hired by county cricket teams and may then with luck be selected to play for England.

Here is John Graham’s reply:

Cricket is not favoured in state schools (which educate 94% of the nation’s schoolchildren) for various reasons. The game takes too long; there aren’t teachers to teach it or to umpire the games; all governments — Tory and Labour — have spent the past 30 years selling off school playing fields in order for more shops or houses to be built and thus create profits for private entrepreneurs (a development both good and bad). Also, cricket is competitive and therefore by definition bad because someone might lose.

This last point is not a joke. Exams are now being made easier, in case students find them too difficult. Public exams may be taken at school or in some congenial surroundings in case students are upset by having to sit them in a strange place. Competitive sports are BANNED by many teachers. Until the age of about 15, children who are lucky enough to be able to play cricket are not allowed to use a hard cricket ball in case it hurts them — they use some softer ball instead. I am told fast bowlers are told to bowl more slowly.

A cricket ball, incidentally, is about the same size and weight as a baseball. It is red rather than white, but they are about the same in hardness.

So what’s happening in state schools is that not just cricket but the whole notion of competition is being undermined, to conform with political correctness. Meanwhile in the private, fee-paying schools the ethos of competition is alive and well. That’s not surprising because parents have to fork over as much as 30,000 pounds a year — about $50,000 — to send their children to these schools. They want their children to do well in life and they know that protecting them from the realities of competition is not the route to advancement.

In the 1950s the advocates of government schooling often loathed private schools as bastions of wealth and privilege — which to some extent they were. But their enemies also thought that private schools would not be able to hold out for long against the competition. After all the state schools were free. Why pay $50,000 a year when a decent education could be had for nothing? Parents were already paying plenty in taxes.

In those days the state schools were still good. It was often said that grammar schools in the 1950s could educate children at least as well as most private schools. Then two things happened. Many of the (state funded) grammar schools were abolished by political decision. Why? Because they too preserved a system of inequality. Access to them was determined by competitive exams. So many students were excluded. Better to level down than to permit such blatant inequality to flourish.

John Graham again:

Page: 1 2  

About the Author

Tom Bethell is a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages, and most recently Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary? (2009).

Letter to the Editor View all comments (42) |

Dr. Dre| 1.13.11 @ 9:09AM

In addition to competition being a factor in private school students' overall success is the degree of parental interest in education, shared by most of the students in the better schools, public or private.

john graham| 1.13.11 @ 1:10PM

Dr. Dre is right on the button. Parents ambitious for their children have no fear of competition, as shown by the fact that the 7% of schoolchildren educated privately in the UK rises to 17% in the Sixth Form, the final two years when the children are 17 and 18 years old. Parents will accept the heavy expense of two years' fees to give their children the best chances of getting into the best universities.

Casey Abell| 1.13.11 @ 9:31AM

There's another lesson in the rise of the English cricket team: racial discrimination doesn't pay.

Kevin Pietersen is a white South African who is now one of England's leading batsmen. He left South Africa because the country favored black and mixed-race players for its national cricket team. (Pietersen's English mother made him eligible to play for England. The nationality qualifications in cricket are a bewildering maze.)

South Africa has seen the error of its ways, or at least so they say. Selections to the national team are now supposedly race-neutral.

john graham| 1.13.11 @ 1:12PM

Yes, and South Africa are now rated 2nd best cricket side in the world, and have this month drawn a very tight series with India, the only side rated above them.

Casey Abell| 1.13.11 @ 3:41PM

Yeah, and can you imagine where'd they be with Pietersen? He could have won that series for them. Oh well, better late than never. SA's selectors have finally decided that cricket ability counts more than skin color.

By the way, Pietersen is hardly the only cricketer that England has picked up from the former empire. They just brought an Irish fellow named Eoin Morgan (don't ask) into the T20 side on the Ashes tour. He played the crucial knock as England scraped by Australia on the last ball a couple days ago.

In fact, more than a few wags have dubbed England the "empire team."

kevin| 1.15.11 @ 7:09PM

Are you really sure he isn't Welsh??
But what a gifted batsman.

kevin| 1.15.11 @ 7:09PM

Are you really sure he isn't Welsh??
But what a gifted batsman.

Dan Hirsch| 1.13.11 @ 9:38AM

In my five plus decades of life I have learned a couple things about my body. I am pretty sure that these things apply to all humans:

1. If I do harder things, my body becomes stronger.

2. If I do easier things, my body becomes weaker.

I don't remember anyone ever becoming stronger or better at anything, physical or mental, by doing fewer or easier things.

I also remember that the hardest things I have done in my life have always been made considerably harder by competition.

So, eliminate competition and we'll raise a considerably weaker, dumber, (DUMBER!) generation of humans.

This sounds simple - but it is both true and universal. Ignore it at your peril. Personally, I try to challenge myself more each year, especially now that my body really does not want to bother.

Akaky| 1.13.11 @ 1:47PM

"So, eliminate competition and we'll raise a considerably weaker, dumber, (DUMBER!) generation of humans."

Unless, of course, creating this generation of weaker, dumber, and therefore much easier to rule humans is the whole point of the exercise.

Richard Baker| 1.13.11 @ 10:04AM

One has to wonder if the kids don't find this lefty nonsense kind of foolish even as they are engaged in it.

john graham| 1.13.11 @ 1:20PM

They surely do. Slackers won't mind, but one is greatly saddened by the numbers of schoolchildren of both sexes in the UK who long to be able to play sports, to have coaches and facilities, and are denied them because of financial constraints and the lack of the physical wherewithal and human helpers. Lack of privilege can be overcome, of course, as nowhere exemplified better than by the wonderful American tennis players Venue and Serena Williams, but those two are exceptional. In the UK one can only wish that state-educated children had the same chances as privately educated children, and political correctness be damned.

Mark MacDonald| 1.14.11 @ 1:47AM

Having taught in American public schools for nearly twenty years, I can attest that yes, most kids do find this type of nonsense foolish, especially boys. In fact, kids love competition and they have no respect who for adults who give them something for nothing.

Will| 1.13.11 @ 10:54AM

In the 2005 Ashes, 10 of the starting 11 were state school boys. The current proportion of public school boys is very much an anomaly.

Occam's Tool| 1.13.11 @ 11:11AM

Let it also be said that cricketers wear padding, at bat, that resembles to a large extent the catcher's "tools of ignorance." The next time you find yourself in an Irish pub (good Fish and chips), and some pommy swine whinges on about how American football players are poofters because of their padding compared to Rugby players (Football is much more fun to watch, incidentally), remind them of the difference between batters in Cricket and Rugby.

Did I mention that I hate New Zealand?

irish19| 1.13.11 @ 1:05PM

Personally, I prefer to watch rugby rather than American football. I don't think the players are spoiled quite as much-although I could be wrong.
BTW, how far does anyone think America will go in the Rugby World Cup that will be played this year?

Occam's Tool| 1.14.11 @ 12:54AM

American players are paid more, yes. But American football players are NOT knighted like the All Blacks are. Hell, the Kiwis have an MP whose portfolio includes the World Cup.

The Americans won't get that far.

Occam's Tool| 1.14.11 @ 1:02AM

Sorry. I meant batters in Cricket and baseball. You are a gentleman, Irish 19.

Will| 1.16.11 @ 10:36PM

Remember that in cricket, it is a perfectly legitimate tactic to bowl at the bowler's head at 90 mph. Also, to catch the ball, baseballers have to wear massive gloves, whereas cricketers use their bare hands

Occam's Tool| 3.11.11 @ 4:11PM

Dear Will,

Pitchers in baseball DO occasionally throw at the batter.

toadold| 1.13.11 @ 11:11AM

In military history one phenomena is how well the non-Sandhurst public school boys performed in the field during WW II. According to interviews after going to shcools like St. Pauls the military and yeah even into the Stalags was easier. The military didn't hit you near as much, they new how to make beds, shine shoes, and look after their mates, and apparently the breakfasts at the Stalags where better.

john graham| 1.13.11 @ 1:01PM

Very good point! In the UK it is a chiche that boarding-school boys survive being in hospital, prison or disciplinary services such as the military far better than boys who have always been at home. We have become used to petty rules, less appetising food and the general privation of creature comforts!

Jon | 1.13.11 @ 11:42AM

I was in state secondary school from 1985-1990 and the "games" (was not even called sports then) classes were terrible. I had about 2 "lessons" of cricket, was never actually taught how to play either. Just, here is the bat, stand there, try not to get hurt.

One of my main regrets of school was that sports were so badly taught. I only got fit when I went to University and joined a kung-fu club (and that was only after watching Jackie Chan).

john graham| 1.13.11 @ 1:06PM

Precisely my point, and I sympathise greatly with the writer. When I was a boarder at Eton in the 1950s (all students were boarders) we did sports 15-20 hours a week, not to mention 2 hours of supervised instruction in the gym and about the same playing boy soldiers in the Combined Cadet Force being marched up and down with rifles by tough NCOs from Windsor barracks. They never let us have live ammo, of course, only ammo. The teachers were often stupid, but notr that stupid!

john graham| 1.13.11 @ 1:22PM

Coprrection to my earlier comment. I should have written "...live ammo, of course, only blanks."

Bob| 1.13.11 @ 2:22PM

Cricket is a team game but there is no hiding place. The action is individual on individual. Contributions, good, bad or indifferent from all players are recorded for posterity! Personal responsibilty is paramount.

Tom Paine| 1.13.11 @ 4:07PM

As someone you lives in England I can tell you that this is a stupid article. The fact is that wealth, class and privilege buys way into the top universities and the top jobs here (something like 70% of judges went to private schools), and gives you access to the best sports facilities too (cricket is one of the sports long favored by the well off). Rather like the US in fact except in sport, where you do have, amazingly, a more egalitarian approach than we do (eg allowing the worst teams to pick the best players - now that's more like it!).

Pelligrino| 1.15.11 @ 5:18PM

I think that Mr. Tom Paine (they have one of his type 'over there?' Start writing, man!) is onto the root of this.

Isn't the aim of all the present & former elites in Great Britain the perpetuation of the status quo?

After all, these elites that attend the St. Paul's and Etons do then get on to Cambridge and Oxford and then....

onto the legal, governmental, and business and Education (government) management of the land, yes?

They are the top tiers making all the -- buffoonery -- decisions, right?

(or is there cunning behind these 'decisions?')

So it really hasn't done much good for the entire populace that the elites had real competition at their "public schools," has it?

As Akaky correctly pointed out: The point of the whole "drill" here is to keep the GB elites at the top and managing & leading.

They are well content if the masses are dull as sawdust and reading the Sun, if they read anything at all.

So bemoan all you want the lack of this and that for 80 - 90% of the citizenry and their children.

Your "blue bloods" are quite content and will thwart you at every turn to revolt and turn the system on its head.

In France it is even worse.

[Same in the US of A. The New England-Northeast elite with some California Bay Area fellow travellers aim to keep the 80 - 90% always in check.]

kevin| 1.15.11 @ 7:04PM

If you had gone to a decent school your rant would have been intelligible.

KyMouse| 1.13.11 @ 4:46PM

Ah, boarding schools. As one person wrote, "Nothing says 'unwanted' like a blue blazer and a one-way ticket out of town."

Tony| 1.13.11 @ 7:53PM

Occam's Tool. Cricketers wear padding on the parts of their body that are legitimate targets of the bowler. Trust me, if pitchers were allowed to aim at batters legs or head they'd soon be wearing more padding.

Occam's Tool| 1.14.11 @ 12:57AM

They may be legitimate parts of the batter in Cricket, but there is a thing in baseball known as "the Brushback." And quite a few damaged players due to it.

Refer to "Field of Screams." In addition, note that on the batter's side there was the legend of Ty Cobb. Baseball is a dangerous, violent sport.

Occam's Tool| 1.14.11 @ 1:01AM

Put the All-Blacks into proper football padding. Give them six weeks intensive training on the rules of football (which is highly similar to rugby).

Any one of the professional US football teams would blow them off the field. Incidentally, the same is true in the reverse. NFL players are among the best athletes on the planet. Perhaps the US should do that for the World Cup one year.

Pelligrino| 1.15.11 @ 5:53PM

Baseball players? US football players?

Since the overall topic focuses on competition as usually (but not always) a healthy way to develop the individual and group to its or their potential...

let's help out Occam T. with understanding how objective competition let EVERYONE know how pitifully fit/poorly athletic baseball and American football players really are.

Back before the world fascination with reality TV, there was a unique USA TV show called "SuperStars" held in Hawaii.

Done in very good weather conditions, established and famous athletes from different disciplines were invited to complete against one another in a decathlon-like set up (10-12 different events)

This TV show pitted famous US football, baseball, track & field, basketball, boxing, and other sports in each episode.

It was interesting because the 10-12 different events focused on most of the full range of athleticism. Strength, speed, agility, quickness, endurance, etc.

After a number of episodes, it became very obvious which sport disciplines produce the best true or all-around athletes.

Then the TV programme's directors opened the athlete pool to a new USA breed of athlete, those in the upstart NASL.

And that changed the whole thing.

You, see, mistake or no mistake, they included a few real 'football' (see below for meaning) players. And they then dominated the Hawaii "SuperStars" competition.

My memory is not sure of this, but a young Yank soccer (yes, Occam, soccer) player named Kyle Rote, Jr. (a Texan, I believe) then dominated in several episodes (they invited prior winners back to see who was the very best of the best).

And the points scores were rather decisive.

Note: To my knowledge there was never a cricket or rugby player invited. So maybe this TV programme needs to be reinstituted so we may all have a better measuring stick as to which sport disciplines have athletes and which have those pretending to be athletes.

Competition.

Occam's Tool| 3.11.11 @ 4:14PM

Walter. Payton. Sorry. I don't know of a rugby type that could have stopped him. Or Gale sayers, or Bronko Nagurski. (Guess what team I root for?)

toadold| 1.13.11 @ 11:29PM

Ah yes, in the USA the wealthy don't send their unwanted children to fee pay boarding schools.......the ones they send to schools like Exeter are wanted. The ones they really don't want are sent to the Military Academy boarding high schools.
I won't mention any names(Kemper, Wentworth, the Marine Academy at San Marcos) don't ask me how I know.

xredcoat| 1.14.11 @ 8:22AM

Risk of liability is destroying youth sports in the USA. School boards have tried to cut sports programs via funding but PTA and boosters provide a significant challenge to the nanny-state mentality.

JS| 1.15.11 @ 2:55PM

Clegg went to Westminster, not St. Paul's. Westminster is a boarding school; St. Paul's is a day school.

Having gone to a public (= private = independent) school myself (albeit a day school rather than a boarding one), I can see the difference. The local Grammar schools now only select about 30% of applicants on academic ability, and my sisters who go to those schools keep coming back with horror stories about incompetent teachers and disruptive classmates.

Private schools aren't immune from bad teachers or students, but they definitely manage to teach better. I had tough end of year exams every year - that's unheard of in the state sector. Minor infractions were punished with "work parties" picking up litter. Although I was never much good at sport, the school had dozens of opportunities. Music was taken similarly seriously.

One of the best things, however, was that it was compulsory to do at least one of CCF (JROTC in American terms) or the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme (expeditions, learning new skills, community service and physical exercise). I did the latter; I wish I'd done CCF or both.

But anyway - for all the minor flaws, it was miles better than most of the state schools near by.

Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 5:46AM

is good

العاب | 4.10.12 @ 12:51PM

Pitchers in baseball DO occasionally throw at the batter thank you very mach

More Articles by Tom Bethell

More Articles From At Large

No Room to Pivot

June 14, 2013 | George H. Wittman

Intervention Temptation

June 13, 2013 | Doug Bandow

Korean Déjà Vu

June 11, 2013 | Doug Bandow

Turkey Is Different

June 10, 2013 | Doug Bandow

The Old Days

June 7, 2013 | George H. Wittman

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/01/13/cricket-and-political-correctn

ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Headlines

Green Flags, Yellow Flags, and Black Flags

John Tabin|32 comments

Barack’s Brave New World Blarney

George Neumayr|21 comments

There’s Something About Cambridge

Daniel J. Flynn|23 comments

Obama’s Unaffordable Act

Peter Ferrara|34 comments

Celebrating Our Lady of Paris

Joseph A. Harriss|4 comments

Charter Schooling? Why Not Charter Housing?

Wayne Woodman|13 comments

Cash for Organs?

Eric Boehm|11 comments

Back in the Fray

Kyle Peterson|102 comments

The Spectacle Blog

Elbert Guillory: ‘Why I Am a Republican’

Patrick Ryan | 10:13AM

The One Party State

F.H. Buckley | 9:47AM

Cummings Accused of Subverting IRS Investigation

Jeffrey Lord | 6:20AM

Let Pitchers Throw Complete Games

Aaron Goldstein | 12:10AM

Thoughts on New U.S.-Taliban Peace Talks

Aaron Goldstein | 6.18.13

Thank You, Bobby Jindal

Matt Purple | 6.18.13

Buzzfeed Faces $3.6 Million Lawsuit for Copyright Infringement

Kaylin Bugos | 6.18.13

Democrat Dan Maffei Blames Budget Cuts for Girl’s Rape, Mother’s Murder

Robert Stacy McCain | 6.18.13

SPONSORED LINKS

FLASHBACK TO: 1995

Clip of the Day

Most Popular Articles

The IRS Immigration Fraud Scandal

Jeffrey Lord | 6.18.13

Foreign Policy as Farce

Jed Babbin | 6.17.13

The Biggest Fool of All

Doug Bandow | 6.17.13

Can Liturgical Music Be Saved?

Patrick O'Hannigan | 6.17.13

Revenge of the Fruitcakes

Peter Hitchens | 6.17.13

Obama's Climate of Intimidation

Matthew Sheffield | 6.18.13

Whither Suburbia?

Steven Greenhut | 6.18.13

The Mole in Don Draper

James Bowman | 6.17.13

ADVERTISEMENT

Home |About |Contributors |Advertise |Donate |Privacy Policy |Contact

The American Spectator Foundation is the 501(c)(3) organization responsible for publishing The American Spectator magazine and training aspiring journalists who espouse traditional American values. Your contributions are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Each donor receives a year-end summary of their giving for tax purposes.

Copyright 2013, The American Spectator. All rights reserved.