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Q: I’ve got a question about the underage cricket pathways.
My son is part of the NSW Pathways, but I’m keeping my surname private to protect him. What I’ve noticed is that both parents and coaches seem overly focused on these pathways, almost obsessively talking about their kids being selected for the state teams. It feels like it’s all anyone talks about, and honestly, it doesn’t seem healthy for such young players.
I even heard a coach tell a 16-year-old that if they didn’t make the NSW U17 team, they probably wouldn’t make it in cricket. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a teenager.
I read an article recently “Stunning stat reveals Australian cricket's lost generation” about the potential for the Australian Test team to not have any players in their 20s and pointing to a "missing generation" of cricketers born between 1994 and 2004. It made me look into the NSW Pathways, and I found that no player under 18 in 2012 has come through and played test cricket for Australia. That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement for Australia’s biggest state.
Why is there such an intense obsession with the pathways?
