LONDON, June 3: Former Test captain Tony Lewis believes English cricket missed out on a chance to grow at grassroots level when it was reorganised in 1997.

The objectives of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) were to make the national team a stronger force. But, Lewis said, starting at the top rather than the bottom was the wrong way to go about things.

Lewis, who touches on the issue in his recently-published autobiography, Taking Fresh Guard, said: “The major investment should have gone into the grassroots and the recruitment and evangelism at the bottom.”

“We try to build a cathedral of cricket starting at the attic and I felt that was the wrong way round. I know you have to put a lot of practical thought into it. But what in fact happened was a lot of the people were employed in the centre and the 18 counties were immediately relegated.”

“I think the media leapt onto this and they also relegated county cricket without looking at the sort of potential framework the counties held out for them.”

Lewis is also fiercely critical of the reluctance shown by British politicians and civil servants to make sport an important part of education.

“Decisions about selling off playing-fields are very much to do with the Department of Education. Sadly the people who work there have no sympathy in sport.

“I see the politicians at that level don’t understand that the playing of games has a big part to play in the creation of a national character.”

Taking Fresh Guard charts Lewis’s lifelong involvement in cricket, from playing on the streets of Neath, south Wales, as a child, through his career as a player for Glamorgan.

There are amusing anecdotes from both on and off the field, including his stint as a BBC television presenter.

A whole chapter is dedicated to that doyen of Test Match Special commentators, John Arlott.

One area not covered in great detail is his nine-Test career for England, when he made his debut as captain on a tour of India.

He explains: “It wasn’t difficult because I was so old, I was 32. If ever I should have played for England it was 1966 when I got more runs than anyone in the country.

“What was the great challenge and toughness was that I got nought in the first innings at Delhi then we needed to bat last to win.

“So to get 70 not out to win the match and be Man-of-the-Match in my first Test was a hell of a thing to happen. “I would have walked off and said ‘I retire happy thank you very much.’”—PPI