The extent to which ex-private school kids dominate Test cricket teams has come to the fore in recent years, especially in England. A 2019 report found state-educated boys had about ten times less chance of making an England Test or white ball team than those attending independent schools.
In Australia, by contrast, we’ve even had claims of a kind of reverse discrimination – that a private school education can be an obstacle to making representative teams. Former Test opener Ed Cowan, a product of Sydney’s Cranbrook School, once suggested it can be harder for private school kids to crack the big time because they were seen as too soft.
In Australia we tend to assume we have a more egalitarian tradition. The majority of our Test captains and great players have certainly been state-educated. Pat Cummins is the first skipper to attend private secondary school since Greg Chappell in 1983.
Pat Cummins. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images for Cricket Australia)
English journalist Tim Wigmore challenged this perception in 2022. He claimed there was now virtually no difference between the countries: “From 2010 to the end of the 2019 Ashes, 45% of England’s Ashes players educated in the country were privately educated, compared to 44% of Australian Ashes players.”
With the Ashes here again, what can we say about the big picture over time? Has the gap between the two countries really narrowed?
To find out I analysed (with help from AI) the 228 Australians who have played ten or more Tests and whose high schools could be identified, and the 224 such English players who played 15 or more. (Finding schools for the 700-plus lesser-known players from both sides with fewer caps is too hard).
As well as players with 10-plus caps going back to 1877, I examined differences before and after 1980 (a rough starting point for professional cricket in Australia); all players making their debut in the last decade (since 2015); and the two current Ashes squads – England’s 16-man party and the 15 announced for Perth (but including Pat Cummins for Sean Abbott).
The results are set out here:
| Australia & England Test cricketers- secondary schools (%) | ||||
| Government | Private | Elite Private | ||
| All players with 10 caps+ | ||||
| England | 64 | 36 | 25 | |
| Australia | 63 | 37 | 26 | |
| Started 1980 or later | ||||
| England | 56 | 44 | 34 | |
| Australia | 60 | 39 | 29 | |
| Post 2015 debut (all players) | Average cost all schools ($) | |||
| England | 36 | 64 | 56 | 32,666 |
| Australia | 35 | 65 | 29 | 14,811 |
| Current Squad | ||||
| England | 29 | 71 | 71 | 41,222 |
| Australia | 60 | 40 | 13 | 8,086 |
It turns out that the overall government-educated share of Test players since 1877 has been about the same in Australia and England – 63% versus 64% Most England players in the early years were professionals from humble-ish background. At the same time, two-thirds of long-term English captains went to private schools, while 64% of Australian captains have been state-educated.
But the picture in both countries has changed markedly in recent decades, and is now more or less reversed for players who debuted after 2015: only 35% of Australian and 36% of English Test players matriculated from state schools – i.e. the trend is even more pronounced than Wigmore found.
The current 16-man England squad reinforces the trajectory – ten graduated from English private schools, only four attended English state schools, and two were educated overseas (Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse). But Australia’s current squad still has a 9-6 state school majority (60%).
Very different school systems
The broad private-government divide may now look similar across Australia and England, but this ignores two huge differences between the respective educational systems – the shares of students in the two sectors, and the types of private schools.
Firstly, Australia has a much higher proportion of pupils in private/independent schools: currently, it is about 40% at secondary level, up from 20-22% in the 1945-1980 period. In England, by contrast, it’s only 8-9% in private institutions, with little change in the last hundred years or so.
Secondly, Australia has a much bigger share of lower fee-paying schools, especially in the Catholic network. This share is largely enabled by the government policy of subsidising all private schools to the tune of $10-12,000 per student.
It doesn’t necessarily tell us much about someone’s background if they go to Marist Brothers Kogarah (Kerry O’Keeffe) rather than a selective state secondary like North Sydney Boys’ High (Allan Border) or Brisbane State High (Marnus Labuschagne).
The contrast between England and Australia is even sharper looking at the respective costs of schooling. All ten of the UK privately educated members of the England Ashes squad went to elite private schools, which I’ve crudely defined as charging final year annual tuition fees equivalent to $A25,000 dollars or more (excluding VAT, which wasn’t payable prior to 2024). These are roughly equivalent to Australian GPS schools.
By contrast, four of the current Australian squad, including Cummins, attended institutions that charge less than $25,000 (three half that or less) and only two finished at “elite” schools (Cameron Green – Scotch College, Perth) and Jake Weatherald (Prince Alfred College, Adelaide).
Weatherald joins the most illustrious group of cricketing alumni in Australia: Prince Alfred boasts famed captains in Joe Darling, Clem Hill and Ian and Greg Chappell, along with Greg Blewett, Tim May, Trevor Chappell and Ashley Woodcock. The next best for 10-plus caps are Brisbane State High and Scotch College, Melbourne.
Similarly, while 20 of the 31 Australian players who debuted after 2015 have been privately educated, only nine of these went to elite schools. Ten went to Catholic schools, like Scott Boland, Brendan Doggett or Todd Murphy (St Joseph’s Echuca, $4,260 fees next year).
But overall, we don’t think of our cricketers as having posh or non-posh backgrounds or manners. If you don’t know, try guessing which of these two groups had private educations and which public:
A. David Hookes, Alex Carey, Mitchell Starc, Michael Slater, Brendon Julian, Steve Smith, Josh Inglis, Tim Paine, Michael Kasprowicz, Michael Bevan, Peter Handscomb.
B. David Boon, Shane Warne, Ryan Harris, Craig McDermott, Travis Head, Terry Alderman, Mike Hussey, Jason Gillespie, Andrew Symonds, Cam Bancroft, Matt Kuhnemann.
David Boon. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
Send answers (A or B) to Old Oakhamian Club, via Oakham School, Rutland, UK: first correct entry gets dinner for two with Stuart Broad. Or in comments below.
There is an even greater disparity between the two countries in the size of top private school fees. The average tuition fees for private schools attended by England’s post-2015 debutants is equivalent to about $51,000 today. For their Australian counterparts the average is less than half that – nearly $23,000. in the two current squads the difference in (today’s) average tuition fees for all players’ schools (private or public) is five times greater for England – about $41,000 compared to $8,000 for Australia.
In fact, seven of the alma maters of the current England squad’s match or exceed the highest fee for any school in Australia (about $52,000 at Geelong Grammar). Some charge as high as $75,000 (Tonbridge School – Zak Crawley). And N.B, both median and average incomes are higher in Australia than in England.
Does it matter?
From a practical standpoint you obviously want to draw upon as wide a talent pool as possible. It’s also important for the sport’s public image and standing. The above figures show Australia has been well ahead in this respect, even if the pendulum has swung towards private schooling over the last decade: based on the current squad alone, the chances of state vs privately educated boys making the Test team are roughly equal.
But a note for the parochial: our long-term 63% state-educated ratio has depended on the great state of NSW, which has produced nearly 40% of all Test players with ten caps or more: 77% of all NSW players finished state schools, whereas the ratio is 50-55% for the other four mainland states
The ECB keeps worrying about the disparity in England. It recently launched a program to support free cricket in 500 state secondary schools and up to 3.5 million children in primary schools. This has a strong focus on ethnic minorities, addressing concerns that “deeply rooted and widespread forms of structural and institutional racism continue to exist across the game” according to a 2023 report.
Cricket Australia isn’t as perturbed about state school representation, particularly as clubs more than schools have been the route to higher honours here. But like the ECB it is concerned about inclusion for some communities, notably South Asian, launching a “multicultural plan” last year.
The more cynical among you could deploy the above info during the Ashes series, e.g. in songs about posh schools or banners with the player’s school fee – “Harry Brook- Sedbergh – Mr $71,000 (incl. VAT)”. I’ll be happy to provide lists. Or would that be unnecessarily cruel if the rest of series keeps going the way of Perth?
Wattohttps://https://ift.tt/f4kytwm cricket is becoming a private-school battleground – and Australia isn’t as egalitarian as you think
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