A History of Cricket at King Edward's School, BIrmingham

74 play a number of matches for Gloucestershire as a slow left-arm bowler between 2006 and 2010. He became Head of Strategy at the England and Wales Cricket Board in 2017. Cricket at all levels is changing fast, and cricket at King Edward’s is no exception. Over the last half-century, there have been changes that could not have been imagined fifty years ago. In the 1960s, all games were traditional ‘declaration games’, where if the side batting first was not all out, it declared and set a target for the side batting second. However, the introduction of limited overs games at first-class level in the 1960s has had major effects at all levels of cricket. Starting in the 1970s, KES played limited overs games in the Warwickshire Grammar Schools Cup, with considerable success, winning it on several occasions. More recently, many ordinary fixtures have been played on a limited overs basis, and the rise of T20 cricket has seen some games each year taking the form of a T20 competition with a group of four or five other schools. The fact that many games are now played on a limited overs basis may explain the increased number of victories noted above, but since the Chronicle often does not disclose whether a game is limited-overs or not it is impossible to be certain. Another change that would not have been contemplated fifty years ago is that the fixture list now includes regular games with St Peter’s School, Adelaide and other overseas school sides touring England. KES toured Australia in 2001-02 and the West Indies in 2011. Finally, as some of the names of recent players show, cricket at KES in the twenty- first century is dominated by players of Indian and Pakistani heritage. This reflects the changing population of Birmingham and surrounding areas over the last half-century. KES is now one of the most socially and ethnically diverse independent schools in the country: according to the Sunday Times of 2 August 2015, three in five boys entering the School now come from Asian backgrounds. The Indian subcontinent has come to dominate international cricket, and the ethnic mix that KES now enjoys means that cricket at KES will enjoy the benefit of this subcontinental inheritance for the foreseeable future.