The State Of English Cricket

ICC current rankings
Test team Ranked 4th
ODI team Ranked 1 also current World Champions 
T20 team Ranked 2nd
Hardly in a terrible state

I am talking about the game as a whole hence English Cricket not the England team. At grassroots level in many parts of the country the game is dying on its feet with clubs and teams folding.

Only in the public schools is the game thriving. If you do not attend one your chances of becoming a batsman for England are worse now than they were 80 years ago.

The problem is cricket is not popular in state schools I dont know why maybe its because the main season is during exam time and school holidays and the length of time it takes to play a game even a 20 over game. IIRC when I was at EPort Grammar we played cricket but school matches were mainly against Chester Schools as not many secondary modern schools in the Port at the time had cricket teams. The game has been synonymous with private education for many years and the old school tie has been a bone of contention over the years and is the main reason why the likes of Botham and Boycott have never been elected onto the ruling committees as they were very outspoken about the issue. As for grassroots cricket I dont think cricket is any different to a lot of sports with clubs folding as funding has been drying up for years. I always enjoyed my cricketing days not that I was any good but there were plenty of clubs around to play for, unfortunatley as you say this is on the decrease and a lot of cricket pitches have disappeared many under houses.

I went to a grammar school (I'm not from a particularly affluent family, I just grew up somewhere where they still do the 11+). At my school, the emphasis was on cricket, rugby and hockey. Football was not part of the curriculum. I've always thought that should not be allowed, frankly, when it's the national sport. It seems like trying to teach English without doing Shakespeare. The beauty of football is anyone can play it, rich or poor, tall or short, fat or thin, boy or girl, young or old. You can play it on the lawn of a mansion or against a wall in a council estate.

Anyway, this insistance on nurturing more exclusive sports caters to, in my opinion, only a small number of pupils, and they're mostly the kind of kids I didn't like - loud, macho, popular, often bullies. It's not unlike the nerds vs. jocks thing you often see in American films, except I think the difference between Britain and America is that over here, the in-betweeners tend to side with the nerd. The result is that even within grammar and I imagine public schools, most kids are turned off these sports and will just play and talk about football in their own circles. It creates elitism within elitism, in a way.

I have basically grown up to dislike both cricket and rugby because of my secondary education. As a young child, I liked all sports, but as I got older I began to feel like my face didn't fit in certain sports and football, even though I've always been a hopeless player, was the only sport I could enjoy. It's a shame because there's nothing inherently dislikable about those sports, although I do find cricket very slow! I sense that historically there used to be more of a crossover with football and cricket, with one seen as the winter sport and the other the summer sport, and many players playing both, but over time they've branched apart and formed their own demographics. And I think the blame for that has to be put down to education and the class system.

Facing a rock hard leather ball being thrown at you at 90mph from 22 yards?

Get some counseling.

Better than a hairy sweaty fat bummed man coming at me to be honest. 

Played a small amount of rugby union in my time in the scrum, so sadly yes 😂😂