Letters | 3 May 2018

Campaign for real cricket

Sir: Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s splendid article ‘Cricket, unlovely cricket’ (28 April) remonstrated against the threat to Test matches and the County Championship posed by the juggernaut of what he termed ‘Twenty20Trash’. He ended with the words ‘after the very successful Campaign for Real Ale, what about a Campaign for Real Cricket?’ As one of the four traditional beer lovers who founded Camra and as an MCC member, I wholeheartedly agree. We must rescue our beloved sport from the hands of the money-obsessed administrators who are foisting an apology for beach cricket on true lovers of traditional forms of a noble game.
Michael Hardman
London SW15

Love in a cold climate

Sir: I write in praise of Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s article on my return from a freezing trip to Lord’s to watch the truncated county match between Middlesex and Glamorgan. Only 100 spectators braved the conditions, among whom the majority were over 65, but we all enjoyed the play on show, despite being buffeted by the winds. Why were we there? Because we adore the proper game and not T20 trash. We like to spot emerging talent. Perhaps young Tom Barber, bowling fast if erratically on his debut, might one day make the England Test team? If, that is, the ECB permits that format of the game to continue.
John Walker
Abingdon, Oxfordshire

A Bridge too far

Sir: Aidan Hartley’s highly selective defence of Bridge International Academies (‘Let kids learn’, 21 April), ignores decades of evidence that school fees are a significant barrier to primary school education in Africa. Far from being the panacea for decades of underfunding, there is no evidence that charging fees and replacing qualified teachers with individuals who read highly scripted lessons from electronic tablets improves educational outcomes. The UK parliament’s international development select committee was right to describe Bridge International Academies as controversial.