The AFL steals cricketers in AFL states line has a bit of truth to it, since cricketers' physiques are much more similar to footy players than rugby players so NSW is more insulated from that effect.
Half the WA/Scorchers squad are poms or saffa migrants who don't traditionally play much footy as kids.
That first bit is exactly what I’m talking about when I say that there’s other reasons NSW produce more cricketers than other states outside of population.
I actually think that WA over performs on average in terms of producing test players given population. I feel either Queensland or WA has usually been pretty strong along with NSW the whole time I’ve been watching cricket tbh.
I’ve never seen such a weak NSW side. It won’t be pretty watching in 2-3 years imo - gotta hope some of these 20-25 year olds come good pretty quick otherwise it’ll be 2010/2011 Ashes bad regularly.