School of Cricket?
 

There seems to be developing grounds/schools where a lot of Professional players come from?

Is there anywhere in the UK,South Africa,New Zealand where this is the case?

I can think of a rugby equivalent in Australia in St Josephs College which has produced a number of Wallabies?

Be interesting to hear some of the schools which produce our future stars!

I dont know how it works at the good cricketing schools around the world, but in SA schools 'buy' players (its the term used locally) with scholarships, financial incentives etc. Its actually a murky world with people making it their careers to locate and promote 13 year olds to schools and then be paid a commission is they are taken by the school.

Some schools (especially the Afrikaans schools) are ultracompetetive and go to great lengths to get the services of certain young players. It also happens in the English schools as well though, as seen by Graeme Smith being aquired by King Edward School in Johannesburg and Herschelle Gibbs being 'bought' by Bishops as a multi-sport athlete.

I haven't really found a divide between public and private schools with regards to where Victorian representatives (and more specifically, underage teams) have been coming from.

I know there's been a bit of a stink kicked up about Dasa's old school and their policy on handing out scholarships, however a lot of these are going to kids at other private schools rather than the public schooling system.

What school Jack?

Hailebury College.

To be honest, the association that they take part in all have scholarship programs in place. It's just that HC are seen to be much more active in "recruiting", and do it on a larger scale. Other schools do it to a lesser extent, and try to keep it under wraps a bit. I know that at the time I left school (2004) Geelong College was the only school in the association whom weren't recruiting players (this isn't just cricket, BTW. One school was "attracting" rugby players, other schools helped their football side, etc.)

I should disclaim that I was also on a scholarship at Xavier, but in a different way to the method described above. I applied for one to get in at Year 7, sitting some tests and all that sort of thing; tried again for Year 9 two years later and was offered a "General Excellence" scholarship. Obviously cricket had a fair part to play in it, but I'd like to think that academia played a part in their decision.

Over here you generally don't here about anyone coming through state school cricket, since there virtually isn't any. Even though most of the county players are educated in the state sector, they play most of their cricket for clubs and the county/representative youth sides.

You can however trace the performances of up-and-coming young players in the public sector, through both the press (The Times runs a short report in the summer about schools cricket) and in Wisden. I can look back at Wisden's from 2001 and see young players making standout performances - hitting double-tons and the like. Alistair Cook was certainly well known for a number of years, even before he made his Essex debut.

With regards to individual schools, there are so many that it is difficult to pinpoint any main cricketing centres. Most of the coaching beyond the basics is done under the eyes of county coaches anyway. There is perhaps a circuit of between five and ten 'famous' cricketing schools (Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury, Oundle), but they are by no means the best, just prestigious, ultra-traditional schools. When I went to play football at Shrewsbury School this year, they had a specialist indoor cricket school complete with artificial grass, six lanes of nets and full run-ups for the bowlers (obviously built following a donation from a wealthy ex-pupil). These schools play traditional, old-fashioned cricket, almost always declaration games, sometimes over two days (although saying that, Oundle experimented with 50-over games in coloured clothing, with a white ball and black sighrscreens). There are also so many schools that any talent is diluted out.

Brighton College does however appear to be producing some decent players for Sussex, both men and women, partly because of Claire Connor's work there. There are also specialist sports schools, such as Millfield, who basically only offer places to sportsmen and women up and around the international level. They can put out teams strong enough to play county academy sides, and regularly beat them.

Manchester Grammar School had Mike Atherton and some others i can't remember

John Crawley was there at the exact same time - the two of them opened the batting together for such a long time.

In fact, Crawley was so upset at the retirement of Atherton that he instantly decided he wanted no further part of Lancashire in any way...

Yeah, they're not a bad side by any means. They're off our lowly Cheshire and Merseyside circuit, anyway.

BTW, when I use "public" and "private" terms for schooling, public refers to the government-run schools, which I think is different to the English interpretation?

Yeah, somewhat confusingly they both mean the same thing over here. I think 'public' school comes from the idea that anyone can go, so long as they pay, rather than selected people.

Public = Private = Independent = Fee-paying. Call it what you like, stump up the money and put on your blazer.

Well, our association is called the "Associated Public Schools", all of which are upper echelon of fee-paying schools. But as I said, public with reference to schooling tends to refer to "public sector", and that everyone has access to them - i.e. government schools.

Brighton have a deal with my school where they have first year out of school students apply to go over and work in the boarding house to play and coach cricket.

In terms of rugby and league i think there is a fair divide between public and private depending on what schools play what sports. Pretty much every school plays cricket though and i dont think there is alot of difference in who produces the good cricketers - particularly in sydney where most of the top players play club over school.