Deserving:

For the first time in three years no British-Asian cricketers have a central contract from the England and Wales Criket Board (ECB) These contracts are for the elite players. There are incremental contracts too, which are a level below, but reward players who could develop further. Monty Panesar was the only British-Asian with a central contract until today, but his performances have fallen below the standard hoped for.

Nevertheless, Ravi Bopara remains on an incremental contract as does Owais Shah and Adil Rashid has been awarded one too. Twelve players have central contracts. Graeme Swann has been rewarded for the progress he has made in establishing himself as England's top spinner and Stuart Broad has emerged as a potential all-rounder, but what have Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood and Alistair Cook done to reatin over the last year compared to Bopara?

Bopara failed in the Ashes series – no doubt about that – but others did too and have their central contracts and unlike them Bopara succeeded against the West Indies. He has three centuries tro his name, albeit against a weak attack, but the runs still had to be scored and others didn't, yet they have central contracts and he doesn't. “Ravi is a highly promising young player who has only played ten Test Matches to date and is still developing as a player,” said Andrew Walpole, the International Teams Media Relations General Manager of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Racism?:

Did racism play a part in the decision not award any central contracts to British-Asian cricketers? “Ethnic origin is not a consideration when the selectors meet and consider the award of contracts,” said Walpole. “It is based on two factors, performance over the past twelve months and likely level of involvement over the next twelve months. Monty Panesar was the last British Asian to be awarded a full twelve month contract and this reflected the excellent form he showed when he first broke into the international set up.”

But now there are none. Will this affect the development of Asians in cricket? “We do not see this as a step back for the representation of British Asians in cricket and would point out that Adil Rashid has been awarded an incremental contract and is widely regarded as one of our most promising young players,” said Walpole. “Owais Shah has also been awarded an incremental contract for a second year running.”

Panesar's county captain, Nicky Boje has had a good match at the Oval – he's taken five wickets for 91 on the flat pitch so far with, so does he think that the fact that no British-Asian cricketers have central contracts will affect their development? “I don’t think it will have an effect,” said Boje.

The Way Forward:

Despite the setback, cricket has a good reputation for bringing through talented Asian cricketers. In an exclusive interview, Middlesex's Director of Cricket, former England fast bowler, Angus Fraser, explained why cricket has succeeded where other sports have failed. “I think there is a reason and that’s because of a deep love for the game,” he said. “You only have to go a game, whether you’re playing or a journalist to see how much they love their cricket, so that is always the first port of call for the parents, looking for their children to play sport. That’s the area where they are naturally pushed, so I think it’s just a natural choice isn’t it?”

So what about football and its failure to bring Asian talent through? “I don’t know what the issues are now why Asian children have not gone into football, because I’d imagine they’d want to get young Asian men playing football,” he said. “They’d want to break into the Asian – Indian – market too.”

Football has a far bigger problem than cricket in attracting Asian players to the sport, but Fraser sees no room for complacency. He realised that Middlesex was missing talent on their doorstep and decided that something had to be done about it. The Wisden City Cup was born. It was an initiative for Middlesex to get to see an untapped well of Asian talent playing in their own community and environment.

“I’ve always said that the Wisden City Cup, which is the twenty20 competition, is sort of aimed at them,” said Fraser. “I think the reason we don’t get through to them is internal. There’s a huge amount of cricket played within the county, most of which we’ve got contact with, but some of it we haven’t and the idea was to try and widen the web as such and hence the Wisden City Cup, which was aimed at areas where there isn’t the same facilities for cricket, like the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets and others; obviously the Afro-Caribbean community in Haringey – the Tottenham area and other areas too – and that we try to draw some of the undoubtedly talented cricketers out of there, so we can have a look at them.”

It is a bold initiative and Fraser played an important part in making it happen. “It came about on an England tour of Sri Lanka,” said Fraser. “There was myself, Owais Shah and Scyld Berry, who was with the Sunday Telegraph – he’s now with the Wisden Almanac – and we were talking about Middlesex’s situation, the fact that the club hadn’t had a great deal of success for quite some time and we got round to the make-up of the side. The side that I broke into in the mid 80s had five black players in it and in many ways it sort of represented the cricket that was being played in the county until that moment in time, because cricket was very popular among the black community. Sadly the interest in cricket seems to have dwindled since then, but not in the Asian community, yet we as a county only have one player with an Asian background in the side, which is Owais Shah, but there are a lot of young Asian men playing cricket within the county. That was the idea to try and produce or create a tournament which gives us a chance to look at some of that talent, because maybe the more traditional cricket clubs within the county are not as attractive as they should be to some of these Asian lads who want to play among themselves.”

The first Wisden City Cup took place earlier this year and Middlesex hope it won't be the last. “It’s been quite rushed this year,” said Fraser. “That’s because we didn’t get the funding until quite late. It was quite close to when the tournament started, but it seems to have gone very well this year. Players seem to have enjoyed it and we got some good cricket, so we are hoping to continue it for the years to come.”

And it has already paid off. “One of them has been involved in the academy and a few practice sessions and games,” he said. “He’s a fast bowler. He’s caught the eye and he’s been involved. I’m not making any predictions about how it will go, but the idea is that you see some of these players and then you get them involved and see where it goes from there.”

Middlesex has just one British-Asian in the first team, Owais Shah, but there are others coming through. Kabir Toor is a young batsman, who bowls some leg-spin as well and they have a young spin bowler, Ravi Patel at their academy. Middlesex clearly want to develop more Asian players and that could be good news for England as unlike in football, there is no club versus country issue in cricket. Fraser's ambitions aren't just for his county. He sees success as including developing players for England.

“First of all the ambition for the club is obviously to be a club that is consistently pushing for domestic honours and be a club that is consistently providing England with cricketers, so they are the dual roles for the county – obviously try to win domestic competitions, but also to produce England cricketers,” said Fraser. Could that ever happen in football, or any other sport for that matter?