The Spin | Devon Malcolm’s Oval heroics a worthy focus for Black History Month

Charity’s Black History Month schools pack is welcome, though it flags up the decline in the number of black England players

We are in the middle of Black History Month and the cricketing charity Chance to Shine has provided schools around the UK with some tools to celebrate black England cricketers. It is a very welcome pack. There are some great characters to celebrate but it soon becomes apparent that most of England’s black cricketers appeared in the 1980s and 1990s rather than in the 21st century and the most recent, Chris Jordan and Jofra Archer, came late to this country – Jordan via a cricket scholarship, Archer, who had represented Barbados Under-19s, via the encouragement of Jordan.

Roland Butcher of Middlesex was the first and I recall being one of the first to know that he was heading back to the Caribbean in the England squad in 1981, when he would play his three Test matches. Ian Botham was the England captain and we huddled around the old dressing room at Taunton early in September 1980 upon his return from the selection meeting, eager to know who had been chosen for the winter tour against West Indies. Oddly I do not recall Butcher’s selection being a massive talking point. He was Botham’s type of player: instinctive, a brilliant fielder and, on his day, a silky, destructive batsman.

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