A day after Australia’s prime minister apologised to the country’s stolen generations, the Courier Mail’s Robert Craddock says the country’s cricket is also sorry.

Sorry that of the 399 men to represent our wide brown land during 130 years of Test cricket, none has been a full-blooded Aborigine. In fact, no full-blooded Aborigine has come close. Jason Gillespie, a descendant of the Kamilaroi people who once populated northern New South Wales, is the only Test player to publicly acknowledge his Aboriginal heritage.

Cricket Australia is pushing hard to find an Aboriginal role model, with its annual Imparja Cup featuring 28 indigenous teams from around the country who had breakfast together in Alice Springs yesterday to watch the prime minister's apology. The best 12 players from the carnival will be sent to the Centre of Excellence for a week's special attention but history tells us they will then return to the anonymity of club and country cricket rather than springboard into the spotlight.