Myerscough College cricketers prepare for South Africa tour

At Myerscough College are using their cricket programme "to challenge the stereotype that exists around the quality of private-school cricketers in comparison to those who aren't", according to Andy Massey.

Andy is centre manager for the course, which is based at Emirates Old Trafford and operates with government funding for sixth-form students.

"I think the 16-18 age-group is pivotal for the future of cricket," he said. "It's really important that we keep providing opportunities, keep them hungry. We're fighting the good fight, slowly getting there."

"One of the barriers that we face is that there are limitations to our programme sometimes and how far we can take it, just purely on the money that's available.

''A lot of our students come from fairly deprived backgrounds. It's about breaking down those barriers and providing young people the opportunity to study and develop their cricket. That is what the future of the game is about."

With that in mind, Myerscough – with help from the college's stakeholders – are taking 42 second-year students on tour to South Africa in February.

"A big part of that was the stakeholders involved," he stressed, "who understand what we're about and what we're trying to achieve. Inclusion and opportunity are at the forefront of our mindset: how do we provide a better opportunity for these guys to develop their skillsets, and how do we make cricket accessible?

"This tour has been massive for that, the fact that we’ve been able to fund it and accommodate so many students. I suppose it's credit to the work that we've done."

Myerscough will play 15 fixtures over 12 days, beginning the trip in Stellenbosch before moving into Cape Town. "We're going to Table Mountain, doing a safari and a stadium tour," he added.

"We're really excited; we changed the winter programme slightly with the focus on that tour, so we've introduced cricket skillsets much earlier than normal because we're seeing more and more students with stress fractures coming through.

"We used to run cricket from September, but by the time we came to April they were so disengaged with the game that we changed our programme.

''So, our block up to Christmas was very much S&C-focused, looking at students' fitness levels, just to make sure that they were safe to hit the ground running come January and well prepped for the season."

Andy Massey was speaking to The Cricketer magazine.