Where I live is about 3% South Asian. Yet the junior teams I coach are usually between 20% and 50% Asian. So clearly the interest is there.

Every single year in April and May I come across the same problem. We can't field a full 11 for a juniors match as kids have been told by parents to stay home and study for GCSE so no cricket. I haven't seen any difference in this between white parents and South Asian parents.

However I have witnessed kids with real talent leave the sport due to a view of lack of opportunities, definitely more frequently with Asian parents. I have seen players go for trials with a County youth set up, get an offer, then decline. Why? Always the same, they do a cost benefit calculation and realise even if they become a somewhat good county player they'll make less money than a lawyer, doctor, accountant etc... (and also thir career will end mid 30s). As a result they don't bother.

I actually think the problem is in reverse. The county set up is insanely disproportionately upper class, privately educated white people. Why? Because they can take a risk on a professional sports contract that doesn't pay all that well and will end at 30 as they likely have family business connections or wealth backing it up. Many of the Asian (and a lot of white players to) realise they will be better off pursuing education for long term prospects rather than risk playing cricket professionally when they aren't likely to earn a huge amount unless they are extraordinarily talented and can make it to the T20 leagues.

Add in the better facilities and training private schools get and you can really start to see why what is happening is the case. Read about all the hurdles Haseeb Hameed had to go through to play cricket (he even had to literally found a cricket team for his school), then compare that to Zak Crawley (went to private school, insanely rich father). Now what I said doesn't only apply to white people, there are plenty of upper class privately educated people from minorities, but I think it's actually a real cause of the resulting demographics of the county game.

It's not a problem in football, sign a pro contract at 16 and even if you play league 1 football your whole career you'll likely have enough to retire on.