Originally Posted by VIc Marks

For almost 150 years the best places to be a student cricketer were undoubtedly Oxford and Cambridge. They alone played first-class cricket against the counties in sublime settings. Anyone who scored runs or took wickets at the Parks or Fenner's would be noticed; they would be courted by counties and in the days of the amateur they would automatically be seen as prospective county captains [...]

By 1996 Graeme Fowler, once of Durham University, Lancashire and England, had persuaded his old university and the Cricket Foundation of the benefits of a cricket Academy at Durham. He has been running the cricket there ever since. 'The idea was simple and it worked,' he says. 'We wanted to allow talented young cricketers to finish their education while allowing them to progress as players at the same time. Too often in the past it was a stark choice between further education or professional sport'. In the past decade Fowler has seen 40 first-class cricketers and four county captains pass through his ranks.

Fowler's scheme at Durham provided the skeleton for the five other centres of excellence, which were set up and funded by the ECB in 2000. These were at Oxford (incorporating Oxford Brookes), Cambridge (with Anglia Polytechnic University), Loughborough, Cardiff and Leeds/Bradford.

Since 2004 the MCC have taken over the project as Stephenson explains. 'The MCC were looking for something new to do, a fresh way to contribute. We now fund the scheme to the tune of £70,000 per year per centre and there is also a discretionary fund of £100,000, which usually gets taken up.

'The ECB was being stretched in all directions whereas the MCC can throw everything at it. We make regular visits to the universities; we conduct audits to make sure the money is not being wasted'. No surprise then that when the West Indies played the MCC in June, 10 students were chosen under the captaincy of Sanath Jayasuriya.

This summer a new MCC Combined Universities side has been established, comprised of students from the six centres who are not contracted to counties. These matches, which will take place out of term time, will enable those players to display their talents in six three-day fixtures against county second XIs and, maybe, to win a contract for themselves.

Originally Posted by acker

But why complain about Roebuck, in the meantime another suitably under qualified Englishman has hit our media. Mark Nichols