THERE was something unusual about the British Universities bowling attack against Sri Lanka, this summer’s first visiting side, in April. It was spearheaded by two young black cricketers, Ruel Brathwaite and Mali Richards, who took three wickets each as the Sri Lankans were bowled out in 75 overs.

Black players are now as rare a sight in first-class cricket as decent off-spin bowlers. It has often been remarked that cricket in the Caribbean is struggling to attract youngsters, lured by basketball or football. But the children and grandchildren of immigrants from the West Indies to Britain are also being turned off the game. It is 25 years since Roland Butcher became the first black England cricketer but none has received a Test debut since Alex Tudor in 1998.

While passion for cricket among Asian communities is soaring, black inner-city youths have lost interest because the game is seen as staid, slow and expensive, Richards said. The Brit Oval, in South London, is at the heart of the Caribbean community but black fans will not attend Test matches because their music is discouraged in the ground and tickets cost too much, he added.

“Cricket needs to be seen as cool by black children,” he said. “Players like Flintoff and Pietersen have a big responsibility to make it cool.” That is something that the ECB is trying to encourage with its Urban Cricket project to distribute 60,000 bats and balls to children in inner-city areas, which was launched by Pietersen in May on an estate in Peckham, southeast London. Twenty20 has also helped to ignite passions for the game.

But even if the appetite is whetted, youngsters need role models and there are few in the county game. The Cricketers’ Who’s Who for 2006 lists 22 players of Afro-Caribbean origin, but five left the game at the end of last season and some, such as Maurice Chambers and Mervyn Westfield, the Essex teenagers, have been given only one first-team game.

The arrival of Dwayne Bravo, the West Indies all-rounder, at Kent this month will be a rarity: counties are increasingly choosing uncapped Australians and South Africans as overseas players rather than established West Indies stars.

“It is a shame because there used to be a lot of West Indians playing county and club cricket,” Richards said. “It was no fluke they came, conditions help their game. In the West Indies the ball does not swing as much as it does here, it tests your technique all the time.

“All the good players I looked up to as a kid served their time over here: Alvin Kallicharan, Gordon Greenidge, Dad . . . ” For Richards, as is clear from the solid jaw and the swagger, is the son of Vivian, born in Taunton when his father was playing for Somerset in 1983.

Richards Jr was a prodigious youngster, the second-highest run-scorer in schools cricket while at Cheltenham College, and he once walloped 319 from 420 balls for Antigua and Barbuda. “I was more of a tennis player when I was young — I was in the top ten in the Caribbean as a 16-year-old — but people started beating me so I swapped to cricket,” he said.

After playing for Middlesex with little success — a highest score of 43 in eight games — he has become a student again and is studying for a degree in tourism at Oxford Brookes as well as playing. “It’s almost like a county set-up at Oxford and I’m hoping it will make me a better player,” he added.

Richards could play internationally for England or West Indies, whereas Brathwaite has just one burning ambition — to rebuild the West Indies, literally. The 20-year-old is a civil engineering student at Loughborough and one of the brightest young bowling talents in the country.

“He has enormous natural ability,” Graham Dilley, the Loughborough head coach, said. “From what I have seen, he can do just about what he wants to do. He is always searching for more knowledge and is one of the nicest men you could meet. In a few months here, he has become a cult hero on campus.”

Brathwaite was born in Barbados but was scouted by Bill Athey, the former England batsman, to study in the sixth form at Dulwich College. “I was usually the only black cricketer on the pitch,” he said. “Other black kids preferred rugby.” He decided to remain in England and has played second-team cricket for Surrey and Leicestershire. Two years ago, he was picked by Barbados against West Indies — he bowled five overs for nine runs and had Chris Gayle dropped in the slips — and wants to go back after his degree.

He just hopes that there is a game to return to. “Black kids are not getting involved in cricket,” he said. “They see the West Indies not doing very well and think ‘why bother?’ We really need the World Cup [next spring] to go well. It might be the last chance to save cricket in the Caribbean.”

And if cricket is saved in the West Indies, that would go a long way to saving it in black communities in Britain.