New cup 'a catalyst' for cricket in state schools
· Yahoo Sports
Schools from across the south have entered a new cricket competition designed to get state-educated children into the sport.
Dozens of schools across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have signed up for the first round of the Knight-Stokes Cup - all with the hope of making it to the finals at Lord's Cricket Ground later this year.
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The new T20 competition, which has been named after state-educated England cricketers Heather Knight and Ben Stokes, has been organised by the iconic Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).
MCC president Ed Smith told BBC South that he hoped the tournament would "act as a catalyst for boosting cricket in state schools".
"The more people who are playing cricket passionately, and it is a big part of their lives, the better it is for the game, full stop," Smith said.
The tournament will conclude with finals played at the home of cricket, Lord's [PA Media]In Oxfordshire, 15 schools from across the county have entered the competition alongside 12 from neighbouring Berkshire.
Unsurprisingly on the south coast, 22 schools from first-class county Hampshire have entered, and will be joined by nine from Dorset and five from the Isle of Wight.
They make up just a small section of the 750 schools across England and Wales taking part in the cup's inaugural edition, with more than a thousand teams taking part across the boys and girls competition.
"Whilst of course anyone that enters the competition wants to win it, let's be clear, this is about much more than that," former England and Middlesex batter Smith said.
"The more people that finish this competition with a love of cricket, that's how we should measure its success."
MCC President Ed Smith said he hoped the tournament would "act as a catalyst for boosting cricket in state schools" [Getty Images]The Knight-Stokes Cup was the brainchild of former England captain Michael Vaughan and MCC chair Mark Nicholas, and is being organised by the MCC Foundation - the organisation's charitable arm.
It comes following a 2023 report found that reported elitism and class-based discrimination in cricket was partly down to a lack of access to the sport in state schools.
The report noted some 58% of men to play for England in 2021 were privately educated, significantly higher than the 7% of the general population who went to private school.
"My dad was an English teacher and he used to say the job of an English teacher is to sell books," Smith, who was also previously an England selector, said.
"In the same way, the real task of a cricket institution is to try and encourage more people to love the game and to show what it can do and the meaning and texture it can give to life.
"That's what this is about."
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