Former England cricketer Michael Carberry says ECB ‘needs to be run better’ following equity report

Michael Carberry has admitted he would be reluctant to work with the England & Wales Cricket Board again because of the organisation’s failures to address racism over many decades.

Carberry is the last British-born black man to represent England in Test cricket, playing six times between 2010 and 2014.

Now 42, the former batter, who has spoken out in the past about how hard it has been for people to speak up about their experiences of racism, is in fact the only British-born black man to play Test cricket for England since 2005.

Following the publication of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) report that details how entrenched racism, sexism and classism is in the English game, Carberry has spoken out again.

Among the issues the report highlighted was the ECB’s failure to address the decline in black participation in English cricket, with the ICEC concluding the numbers were now so low that the demographic had become “statistically irrelevant”.

Carberry said: “You see some of the numbers coming out the report, just in terms of black players, the numbers show we’re near extinct in the game.

“I’ve been part of the game for a long time and I’ve got to be honest, I’m struggling to see any optimism from yet another report.

“Reports were done right at the start of my professional career, and it’s sad for me we’re still having these same conversations and nothing’s really moved. If anything, it’s got worse.

“I’m shocked that I’m not shocked. I no longer play but I coach London schools. We’re trying to get kids from state-school backgrounds from white, black, Asian backgrounds who would normally struggle to get into county programmes.

“We’ve applied for funding from the ECB and they just don’t want to know.

“They’re happy getting the same kind of kids from the same kind of areas that they trust which is generally the private-school backgrounds.

“Get rid of this boys’ club environment that’s been created for a long time. Simply open the doors of the game to people. Do I think the ECB needs to be entirely ripped up? No, I think it just needs to be run better.”

Carberry did work alongside the ECB last year when he headed up a project from anti-racism campaign group Kick It Out in partnership with the governing body that addressed the challenges facing under-represented groups in cricket.

That project has now ended, with Kick It Out telling i they will wait and see what the ECB’s response to the ICEC report is over the coming months before deciding whether to work with them again.

However, asked whether he would consider working with the ECB to help them address these issues, Carberry told TalkSport: “I don’t know. I would have to give it some consideration obviously…”

Host Laura Woods then asked whether his reluctance was because he had been hurt by the ECB before, with Carberry replying: “Yeah. I think people have become increasingly sceptical about what the ECB bring out. ‘We vow to do this, we vow to do that.’

“I feel like I’ve seen this movie before. I’m more about the action, what is the plan?”