Stephen Fry backs removal of Eton v Harrow fixture ahead of MCC member vote

The incoming MCC president says the decision not to guarantee the match a spot on the Lord's fixture card will help cricket lose its image of "snobbery and elitism"

Incoming MCC president Stephen Fry has backed the removal of the annual match between Eton and Harrow at Lord's, expressing his desire to make cricket "a game that more people understand and love".

MCC first unveiled its plans to remove the 55-over match, which was first played in 1805, from the fixture card in February in order to "broaden the scope of the fixture list" and "make Lord's more accessible to a wider range of players and extend playing opportunities to more teams."

However, the decision encountered significant backlash from members, with a number of Old Harrovians and Old Etonians setting up a committee to support the reinstatement of the fixture – and Oxford versus Cambridge - and collecting the required 180 signatures to trigger a special general meeting.

The meeting is expected to take place on September 27, with the club's 18,500 members having until October 3 to vote on the matter.

^{Pupils watch the Eton v Harrow fixture earlier this year [Alex Davidson/Getty Images]}

As quoted in The Times, Fry said: "My urging for MCC members is: If you really love cricket, don't you want more kids to play? Don't you want it to lose that image that it sometimes still has — a turgid image of snobbery and elitism? That's not what cricket is about. It's the second most popular sport in the world and it needs people to understand what a wonderful game it is, and how it’s available for everybody.

"If there is this Oxbridge match and Eton v Harrow and they're the only two of their kind [played at Lord's], I just don't see how that's going to encourage young people from all over the country.

"Often people who complain or suspect 'wokery' or box-ticking overlook how popular the moves to open things up are. They may see it as . . . some terrible thing, pulling the game down. It's not about ticking boxes, or 'punishing people' for going to Eton, Harrow, Oxford or Cambridge. It really isn't.

"The village cricket final is infinitely enriched by the fact that the reward is that it is at Lord's. It's as if you were playing a local tennis competition and you end up at Wimbledon. It's the Mecca. My passion is to make cricket a game that more people understand and love and more people believe in their ability to take their talent through.

"I would ask if you're a parent of a boy at Harrow who is brilliant at cricket and he gets to the final, would you not be more proud than if he plays there as a right, just because you paid for him to go to that school.  Every Etonian and every Harrovian is free to join in the wonderful Road to Lord's, which will culminate in a match that really means something."