How the little master Sachin Tendulkar is helping Middlesex build a big future

The latest edition of The Analyst: Inside Cricket podcast sees SIMON HUGHES speak to Middlesex chief executive Richard Goatley about turning the club into a community asset

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It is perhaps not surprising in these straightened times that the penny is dropping. Denied by COVID-19 of the chance to build on England’s compelling World Cup final success of exactly 12 months ago, counties are realising that they have to find new ways to survive. In a sense that is a positive of the pandemic. It has focused minds and fine-tuned strategies. 

Middlesex want to become a community club. Now that is hardly revolutionary thinking: Somerset, for example, have been doing that for years. It is harder, however, when you have a hugely successful history, a vast population and Lord’s as your home ground, to accept that the next Mike Gatting or Mark Ramprakash won’t just stroll through the Grace Gates one day and become a star. They have established a close relationship with the game’s most iconic player – Sachin Tendulkar – in their quest for transformation. 

In a way the bigger the club you are, the more difficult it is to engage at a local level. That is exactly what Middlesex, belatedly, are attempting to do. Time, and the tranquillity of Bushy Park’s savannah – where herds of deer mingle with joggers, cyclists, and bird-watchers – has enabled Middlesex’s chief executive Richard Goatley to see things more clearly. 

That is the view from his temporary office window in the newly opened pavilion of Teddington Cricket Club, where both he and ECB chief Tom Harrison are long-time members. Spared the hurly-burly of Lord’s - where he is normally based – and an endless stream of visitors and problems - Goatley has been able to start planning for the future. And part of that future is built around their association with the Little Master. 

“About three or four years ago we helped Sachin get his son Arjun some cricket in Middlesex, and I had dinner with him," Goatley explained.

"I talked about our aims to make Middlesex a more diverse team with more Asian players but also I’ve always been incredibly impressed by Sachin’s approach to the game, very hard-working, humble and playing it in the right way.

"We’ve done some work on values ourselves at Middlesex and from that conversation we decided we should work together. We’ve created some Tendulkar academies – we ran some Tendulkar camps last year at Merchant-Taylors school and we’ve run some in Mumbai and Pune and other places.

"We opened in January our first permanent academy at the DY Patil stadium in Navi Mumbai and we are looking at other sites at the UK and the rest of the world. Our driver is to have an influence on kids' lives. This isn’t about rich, wealthy kids paying a lot of money for an academy,  its about reaching out to as many kids as possible and giving them an opportunity and teaching them in a way that both Sachin and Middlesex approve of.

"We took our academy syllabus and amended it with Sachn to bring a sort of ‘Sachinized’ approach to how Middlesex play cricket. It’s a real meeting of minds. He’s very involved.”  

“One of the key points of my strategy, when I took over in 2015, was to increase diversity. We won 14 trophies in 14 years in the 1980s and 90s and much of that success was built on black and Asian players.

"We are definitely at our strongest when we truly represent our community so one of the reasons for engaging with Sachin was to build a far more sympathetic tone towards the Asian community and we’ve done a lot more work with the specific Asian leagues around the county. This is top of the agenda at the moment.” 

Like other counties, Middlesex will embark on their new season on August 1, most likely playing at Radlett initially until some level of spectators are permitted. “We still don’t know if and when crowds will be allowed – it's changing on an almost daily basis. I’m hopeful and I’d like to think cricket could be a useful testbed. If they are thinking of enabling bigger crowds in football eventually maybe they could try it in cricket first. 

“Cricket has a clear place in the community. I’d like to think we’ve learned some lessons during lockdown for next year. We can push cricket in a different direction, we need to reflect our community, make it a massively focussed community sport.

"We want a talented nine-year-old from Southall or Isleworth…or Teddington…to feel they can be the next Gatting or Ramprakash. We want all communities to believe they are part of this club. Lord’s is different now – we’ve gone past that sort of elite, isolationist, inaccessible perspective.  We’re really embracing everyone. We will be a huge community club going forward and I think that’s where county cricket needs to position itself.” 

This is of course the basis of the success of some of the smaller counties like Somerset and Essex. Finally, some of their bigger siblings are cottoning on. 

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