Ethnicity in aussie cricket wahts the real status

[brockley]

The sydney morning herald and the age have been posting stories about ethincity in australian cricket of late.
Wondering what the real status is in australia,moreso in grade cricket and underage cricket.
This year kumar sarna is being painted as a post card of ethnic cricket,last year it was usman khawajah and a few years before that aihleen beadle.
In state cricket you have jon moss and mathew klinger both jews,craig gilles and brendon nash west indian,previously daniel payne asian.But really in state cricket there is not much home to write home about there is andrew symmonds,daniel christian and jason gillespie of course.
There was of course dav whatmore in 78/79 in the world series cricket years.
Sure those from eastern european backgrounds coming through is very strong.
But really at state level there is not much home to write home about and i gather its the same in grade cricket.
Oh forgot darren wates who is indian by heritage.
Just thought i'd start off a debate.
We are no where like england and south africa are thats for sure.

 

[Richard]

Sorry, but... what does religion (Jews) have to do with ethnicity...?

 

[Neil Pickup]

What's the ethnic makeup of Australia? I was never under the impression (mind, this is probably an impression gleaned from sports teams) that it was any more than 1-2% minority.

The UK is 9% "minority ethnic" and when I work out how to work the census site I will make more sense of that number...

 

[Neil Pickup]

What's the ethnic makeup of Australia? I was never under the impression (mind, this is probably an impression gleaned from sports teams) that it was any more than 1-2% minority.

The UK is 9% "minority ethnic" and when I work out how to work the census site I will make more sense of that number...

White 92.1
Mixed 1.2
Indian 1.8
Pakistan 1.3
Bangladeshi 0.5
Other Asian 0.4
Black Caribbean 1.0
Black Afrian 0.8
Black Other 0.2
Chinese 0.4
Other 0.4

 

[Richard]

No Sri Lankan?

 

[Richard]

Black Afrian 0.8

Most uncommon.

 

[archie mac]

The last time I checked (a few years ago now) it was less then 2% Asian and less then 2% Aboriginal

That said we have 11 white Aussies in my cricket team, and in our club there would be only a handful of black players, last year it would have been 3X that number

 

[brockley]

Am not going to get into a debate on race religion etc.
Jews in australia are considered an ethnic group there is 80,000 overall.
BTW am not targetting jewish people as per chance.
BTW julian wiener was of jewish extraction.
There is meant to be 1 million asians in australia i gather that would include people from the middle east.
Actually there was a case a few years ago where an afghanistan kid in detention was picked for a south australian underage team.
There are 250,000 aborginals,altho most of them prefer footy to cricket.

 

[Chemosit]

We have a several Indians/Sri Lankans and about three orientals (of various original nationalities) in my club's sides (Syd districts cricket).
I am surprised there are not more, as whenever I pop into a service station/shop in my whites on the way to/from the ground, the people behind the counter (usually Indian/Pakistani in origin) are always excited and have a chat about the game.
There is however a certain amount of discrimination that goes on and I wonder if this has anything to do with it.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

The last time I checked (a few years ago now) it was less then 2% Asian and less then 2% Aboriginal

Way off on the Asian stats, I'm afraid. Right about aboriginals, though.

Here's the breakdown as of 1999:

Anglo-Celt - 69.88%
South European - 6.96%
North and West European - 6.89%
East European - 4.36%
North East Asian - 2.72%
South East Asian - 2.54%
West Asian and North African - 2.46%
Aboriginal/TSI - 1.51%
South Asian - 1.31%
Jewish - 0.66%
Pacific 0.53%
African 0.13%
American 0.05%

So the Asian numbers combined would have been over 9%, if you include the middle east. It's obviously higher today as well given that was 7 years ago, as Asians are comfortably the fastest growing ethnic group in Australia. The prediction for 2025 is 19.09%.

It's funny that people assumed Australia was a fairly homogenous country. We would have a fair claim to be the most multi-cultural nation on earth, at least in terms of ethnic backgrounds. The USA is fairly close but last time I checked Australia has a higher percentage of people from non-anglo immigrant backgrounds.

 

[Josh]

Go the USA!! Bottom of the list lol.

 

[pasag]

Wrt to Jews, if there is a disproportionate level of 100,000/20 million playing cricket, I wouldn't put it down to discrimination. There are quite a few generalisations I can make from my observations and knowledge of Australian Jewry as to why Jews don't play cricket but I'd rather not go there and start with the generalisations but it's just a preference thing really. (That being said there is a quite a small but vibrant and active Jewish club cricketing community)

I have nfi about the racial/ethnic make up of lower levels of cricket in Melbourne, but with the vast amount of diversity here you'd hope that would be reflected in the cricketing make up at all levels. You'd hope.

 

[telsor]

A couple of other factors.

Cricket isn't the number 1 game in Australia...Australian rules Football is, so any plans to play sport to 'fit in', or learning it through school are likely to tend that way. Also, soccer is significant enough that many ethic groups prefer that as they already 'know' the game.

As for Jews..I used to play with a couple and their big problem was that most games were on Saturday which is the sabbath. ( They didn't mind so much, but their families put a lot of pressure on them ).

I live in an area with a large Indian community, and often see them playing each other in the local parks. There could be an element of not joining the mainstream cricket clubs being the cause of few Indians reaching higher levels. Why they don't join in would be an interesting question.

 

[pasag]

A couple of other factors.

Cricket isn't the number 1 game in Australia...Australian rules Football is, so any plans to play sport to 'fit in', or learning it through school are likely to tend that way. Also, soccer is significant enough that many ethic groups prefer that as they already 'know' the game.

As for Jews..I used to play with a couple and their big problem was that most games were on Saturday which is the sabbath. ( They didn't mind so much, but their families put a lot of pressure on them ).

I live in an area with a large Indian community, and often see them playing each other in the local parks. There could be an element of not joining the mainstream cricket clubs being the cause of few Indians reaching higher levels. Why they don't join in would be an interesting question.

This is a factor I was going to bring up and it does impact a certain, sizeable segment of the Jewish community although not a majority by any means.

 

[Jono]

From my experience, there are quite a few of South Asians playing club cricket. At my club there are 5 in seniors (including myself) and just yesterday the captain of of the opposition was of South Asian descent.

Obviously that isn't representative of Australia or anything, but just what I've experienced.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Sorry, but... what does religion (Jews) have to do with ethnicity...?

It's an ethnicity, not just a faith.

 

[Josh]

Plenty of players in my league that are from the sub-continent (Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka), or have origins from Europe (Greece mainly). I have seen the odd person of Asian decent but they are most uncommon. The most popular ethnicity in cricket in Australia is probably most likely from the sub-continent.

 

[Richard]

It's an ethnicity, not just a faith.

Is it?

 

[BoyBrumby]

Given the size of Australia's non-Anglo population, which proportionally looks bigger than ours, it is something of a mystery as to why cricket does so badly in the make up of teams at the highest level compared to other team sports. There are probably some fairly strong cultural reasons why Australians of Italian/Greek/former Yugoslavian extraction would naturally gravitate to Association Football &, similarly, why those with Pacific island/NZ antecedents would favour either of the Rugby codes; but on the face of things you'd have to say those same cultural predispositions exist for Australians with sub-continental parents or grandparents, which makes the lack of them quite curious I'd say.

In the UK Asians have a very healthy representation in our county cricket & representative teams, but don't do so well (in fact are notable by their absence) from our Rugby & Football teams, which seems to support the "cultural" theory. Conversely Brits of black Caribbean & African origins punch above their weight in the football codes.

 

[pasag]

Is it?

Yes.