Can we produce cricket personalities like Imran Khan without school cricket?

[Titan24]

If we look at one of the greatest cricketer of Pakistan"Imran Khan", he wasnt just a cricketer with extraordinary abilities but had a charisma and personality to inspire. That completeness was only possible due to personality building and thinking mind which was only due to education and learning which he was able to get from school and on wards while he was playing cricket as well.

Most of the great cricketers we have produced and which had exemplary personalities and leadership ability were produced from school cricket.

Where has school cricket gone? Why didnt govt made it compulsory for every school to have a team and why dont we have inter school cricket leagues?

If we see in India 90% of the new players and current players played school cricket and progressed from there.

Some of the current cricketers of our current team have a lot of talent but without any disrespect to any of them they dont have the personalities, discipline, work ethics etc to inspire a young kid. When Imran used to speak he used to inspire young kids to take up the sport because they saw that these are the kind of personalities who become stars and top performers in cricket.

Such inspiring cricket personalities can only be produced through education and grooming and that is only possible if we build our school cricket system again.

I am not saying that talent should be ignored but I am just saying that we should not let well groomed talent go to waste because we dont have a structure in place for such kids.

 

[Markhor]

School and college sport generally can be a great character building experience whereby one gains leadership amd management skills at an early age. A big reason why Pakistan's transition into international cricket post-Partition was relatively seamless was because school cricket was so strong and fostered a competitive spirit amongst budding cricketers.

People still talk about the rivalry between Government College and Islamia College which produced so many Test cricketers. Now school cricket is in a weakened state.

One of the reasons, and it's perfectly understandable, is many parents dissuade their kids from pursuing sport professionally in favour of professional vocations that'll earn the family a steady income. In the West however you don't have to make such trade offs. There are sports scholarships available to kids who can still pursue their academics but also follow their sporting ambitions.

PCB should link up with 10-15 major schools and colleges and invest in a couple of hundred scholarships for the brightest cricketers. Send your top scouts to these school competitions and get them in the NCA setup early.

 

[Titan24]

School and college sport generally can be a great character building experience whereby one gains leadership amd management skills at an early age. A big reason why Pakistan's transition into international cricket post-Partition was relatively seamless was because school cricket was so strong and fostered a competitive spirit amongst budding cricketers.

People still talk about the rivalry between Government College and Islamia College which produced so many Test cricketers. Now school cricket is in a weakened state.

One of the reasons, and it's perfectly understandable, is many parents dissuade their kids from pursuing sport professionally in favour of professional vocations that'll earn the family a steady income. In the West however you don't have to make such trade offs. There are sports scholarships available to kids who can still pursue their academics but also follow their sporting ambitions.

PCB should link up with 10-15 major schools and colleges and invest in a couple of hundred scholarships for the brightest cricketers. Send your top scouts to these school competitions and get them in the NCA setup early.

Exactly. Hopefully Govt takes a look into it and revive that old culture back which has given us some brilliant cricketers with great character and leadership abilities.

 

[gazza619]

Do we have parents who can raise an Imran Khan? I doubt.

 

[Cric1234]

A cricketer and personality like Imran is rare the combination of exceptional ability looks charisma leadership qualities are not commonplace it's unlikely another can be found easily.

 

[sjahmed23]

School and college sport generally can be a great character building experience whereby one gains leadership amd management skills at an early age. A big reason why Pakistan's transition into international cricket post-Partition was relatively seamless was because school cricket was so strong and fostered a competitive spirit amongst budding cricketers.

People still talk about the rivalry between Government College and Islamia College which produced so many Test cricketers. Now school cricket is in a weakened state.

One of the reasons, and it's perfectly understandable, is many parents dissuade their kids from pursuing sport professionally in favour of professional vocations that'll earn the family a steady income. In the West however you don't have to make such trade offs. There are sports scholarships available to kids who can still pursue their academics but also follow their sporting ambitions.

PCB should link up with 10-15 major schools and colleges and invest in a couple of hundred scholarships for the brightest cricketers. Send your top scouts to these school competitions and get them in the NCA setup early.

Perfectly written. Can't believe we don't have a robust cricket set up for school kids, I mean it's not that difficult and the rewards are tremendous. NCAA (college sports) is a multi billion dollar franchise in the US, the TV rights are sold for billions because of the intense school rivalries and most of that money is invested back in the school atheletic programs or scholarships. It's a win, win.

 

[Titan24]

So as discussed this a year ago and its still relevant with not many new personalities coming to our cricket who can inspire others.

If there would be one thing I want a PCB chairman or CEO to do is to reestablish that grassroot system at school and collage level. These were Wasim Khan's so called expertise but dont see many steps taken as of now.