Why are we playing less cricket?

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64,000 fewer of us have played cricket this year. The ECB’s 2014 National Cricket Playing Survey revealed a seven per cent fall in participation from 2013, down from 908,000 people to 844,000. The figures are based on responses from 37,500 individuals, although it’s not clear – so far as I can see – who was surveyed. Are these people league club players, or village/parks cricketers?

The research also determined that, to quote the ECB:

  • 247,000 were ‘Core’ players who play at least twelve weeks of a 26 week summer season.
  • 405,000 were ‘Occasional’ players who play between three and eleven weeks of a 26 week summer season.
  • 192,000 were ‘Cameo’ players who play one or two weeks of a 26 week summer season.

In the Telegraph, Nick Hoult reported that “the number of matches conceded because one team could not string together 11 players stood at five per cent”. Anyone who’s ever tried to run a cricket team – as I have for fifteen years – will sympathise with this finding. Meanwhile, “more than two fifths of southern Asians were dissatisfied with the playing options on offer”.

So what are the reasons? The ECB blames…the weather…

The survey revealed that poor weather contributed to the decline in participation. 70 per cent of amateur cricket is played on Saturdays and only 15 Saturdays were rated ‘dry’ in 2014 compared with 20 in 2013.

ECB’s Chief Operating Officer Gordon Hollins said: “Our recreational game also experienced greater frequency of rainfall on Saturdays in 2014 than in the wet summer of 2012 and in the New Year we’ll be announcing further plans to support clubs in their efforts to mitigate the impact of wet weather which had a significant impact on the number of fixtures completed”.

How will the ECB prevent rain stopping play? Giles Clarke may have a big ego, but surely even he doesn’t believe he can control the weather.

According to Hoult’s article, the board will improve drainage facilities and “encourage players to play when rainfall has been minimal”. Good luck with that. Anyone who’s ever played amateur cricket knows that when rain falls during a match, two things occur:

– As soon as the first few drops fall, the losing team immediately declare that the ground is unplayable and leave for the pub.

– At first, the winning team try and talk them out of it. After five minutes they also give up, and head for the pub.

If someone were to say, “hang on a minute, the ECB want us to keep playing” – I suspect it will have little effect.

Does seventy per cent of amateur cricket really take place on Saturdays? League cricket might, but all anecdotal and personal experience tells me the vast majority of friendly and village cricket is played on Sundays. And how will the ECB improve drainage on cricket fields in parks or village greens?

As far as the ECB are concerned, the fall in participation is due to the logistical problems of Saturday league cricket. Hoult writes that:

The ECB [plan to] encourage local county boards to consider new start times and shorter matches to fit in with modern lifestyles and help cricketers who are employed in shift work.

A recurring theme from the ECB’s research and from cricket players who have contacted Telegraph Sport, is that league matches on a Saturday take up too much time.

It is a view shared by Munir Ali, the father of the England cricketer Moeen Ali, who is heavily involved in grassroots cricket in Birmingham and runs his own academy at Edgbaston.

“For south Asian cricketers there are plenty of opportunities to play cricket”, he said. ‘A lack of opportunity is not the problem. The fact is a lot of guys who are good enough to play in the Birmingham League on a Saturday are opting instead to play parks cricket which lasts for just 20 overs.

“In the Birmingham League it is 55 overs per side from 12pm which means guys have to be at the ground at 11 and perhaps leaving home at 10 o’clock. If you are working shifts it is very hard to do that”.

What will the ECB do about this? Gordon Hollins says:

We are now setting about finding ways in which we can best address [recreational cricketers’] needs going forward. We are already working in partnership with our 39 County Cricket Boards as part of a detailed participation review. We will join them in working with their respective cricket leagues to tackle key factors which affect participation such as match end time, travel distance to matches, playing format, length of game and club/school links.

Fair enough. That all sounds perfectly laudable, and if the logistics of Saturday league cricket aren’t working, quite right to fix them. At least the ECB are taking some kind interest in the recreational game, and making efforts to increase access. We all love a “detailed participation review”, don’t we? This calls for a Powerpoint presentation!

I’ll try not to be too cynical. The ECB’s motives here may be entirely genuine and altruistic, with the best interests of English grass-roots cricket at heart. No compelling evidence to the contrary has emerged. There are a few people at Lord’s with their hearts in the right place.

But in this political climate, always look beneath the surface. One of the ECB’s key justifications for flogging the game to Sky was the money generated for grass-roots cricket. This argument requires them to prove the cash has wrought results. And at governmental level, UK national sports bodies are generally expected to increase and improve participation. The Olympics made public access to sport a political issue. If your sport messes it up, while all around you others are making strides, you earn a black mark, and lose bargaining power when you need a favour from Whitehall.

At the back of the ECB’s minds is the fact the Department of Culture, Media and Sport have the power to re-list English international cricket for free-to-air television. They do not want that to happen. So they need to demonstrate that their house is in order.

Another factor is even more pressing. Last year the ECB were warned by Sport England they risk losing government funding unless participation rates increase. SE are forking out £27.5 million in grants for the ECB to spend on improving local cricket facilities. Yes, like me, you probably thought that’s what the Sky money was for – to pay for grass-roots investment. In reality the taxpayer is footing the bill.

If the ECB were to see their grants cut or withdrawn, not only would it be hugely embarrassing – their entire corporate position on the Sky deal, and recreational cricket, would collapse.

Nick Hoult reports that the ECB are “promising an increase in funding for grassroots cricket”. By how much, I wonder?

To return, though, to their plans for increasing participation by re-jigging Saturday league cricket. Their analysis is predicated on the false logic that recreational cricketers are only involved in this type of cricket – and within structures affiliated to and overseen by the ECB.

The numbers may be hard to quantify, but my own experience suggests a very significant proportion of cricketers play entirely outside the ECB system: non-affiliated and wandering clubs; informal leagues; Sunday, village, and park cricket. Tens of thousands of people who love the game simply aren’t good enough for league cricket, or don’t enjoy the competitiveness, or can’t commit the necessary time for the regular nets and fixtures which formal cricket demands. Plenty of clubs would rather do their own thing, with other like-minded teams, than operate under the ECB umbrella.

Whatever the reason, they still want to play cricket – and deserve as much recognition and support as league players. But no amount of ECB tweaking and fiddling will help their clubs recruit teams or host fixtures. They won’t see a penny of ECB cash.

Most secretaries of village-style sides will tell you that after raising an XI the hardest part of their role is finding a ground. In London at least, demand outstrips supply for affordable and hireable cricket grounds of tolerable quality, especially those served by public transport.

I’m not sure if this problem is reducing the amount of cricket being played, but it probably imposes a natural cap. Sourcing a venue requires money and often much administrative hassle, which deters many from even bothering. Also off-putting are council grounds in conditions too poor for a proper match, and with nary a changing facility in sight.

Informal and park cricket is as grass-roots as it gets. So I’d like to see the ECB invest a meaningful sum of their Sky loot on improving public cricket grounds, especially in urban areas – and creating more of them, through sympathetic adaptations. This could often be as simple as installing an artificial wicket on a pitch used for football in the winter. Money should also be spent on constructing a centralised booking system, enabling a club to quickly establish what’s available across a whole area – instead of laboriously ringing up each individual council or sports club.

These are unglamorous tasks. This is not the sexy kind of stuff which gets ECB chairmen knighted. But it still needs doing.

What the ECB are doing – or at least, they say they are – is focusing on British Asian communities. Hollins says they have “launched a programme of engagement and development with South Asian communities which has been backed up by capital and revenue investment in five major cities [London, Leeds, Leicester, Bradford and Manchester] with a high South Asian population”.

This all sounds promising enough, but we’d all like to know exactly what this means in practice, and how much money they’re spending. I can’t see any further information on the ECB’s website – which could be my fault. I’ve just e-mailed their press office asking if they have more detail available.

When you think about why we play or don’t play cricket, heaps of factors are completely outside the ECB’s influence. Cricket is time-consuming and cumbersome. Staging a match involves finding twenty two people who can all spare an entire day of their weekend. To run a team, you need to do that on a fairly regular basis throughout the summer, every year. We have other things we want to do with our lives, not least spend time with partners and family. We can’t blame the ECB for being busy.

Here’s two things they can do. First, recognise that a huge swathe of English cricket exists independently from their auspices. The way to increase access is to avoid the jargon of pathways and engagement, especially when aimed exclusively at league clubs which are irrelevant for many cricketers, and pay for real practical help in the form of grounds and grants for kit.

The second is for ECB officials to stop ignoring the elephant in the room, and ask themselves a question. What made them – as cricket enthusiasts – fall in love with the game in the first place? Almost certainly, because they grew up watching it on television. 2015 will mark a decade since cricket was banished behind a televisual paywall. Is it total coincidence that fewer people are now playing the game themselves?

23 comments

  • The pressure being applied by some teams to abandon the commitment to the longer, pure form of the game in favour of quick cricket will be disastrous for the quality of cricket in the Counties and eventually International cricket in this country. Fiddling with the laws and regulations to make it easier to hit quick runs and bowl two sides out quickly is not a good idea. If necessary, let’s have fewer high quality clubs playing Premier League Cricket rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water.

    • They tried that in Cambridgeshire, every single team said no thanks.

      We already have a thriving T20 scene on weekday nights. The weekends are for 40/45/50 over cricket.

    • IF the ECB reduce league cricket below 45 overs per side then I can see myself as a 30 yr old leaving the game. I have little to no interest in the 2020 type format (or 3030 etc) as it’s purely about who can smack the ball the most.. That is fun for a little while but it lacks the skills needed for 50+ over draw cricket. Yes, you can say draw cricket is ‘boring’.. it’s only boring if you aren’t good enough to get a team out! Make bowling as important to being a ‘good’ team as batting.. It’s sad to hear a game described as ‘brilliant’ just because one team scored 300-3 adn the chasers got 303-3… that’s not a good game.. that’s a boring game. fielders chase leather (I’ve not met a fielder yet that enjoys it!!!)… bowlers get smashed (meaning many will just not bother)

      a game of 230-8 and the chasers get 220 ao or 231-9 is much more enjoyable than the previous.. however,, the modern trend of promoting hitting mroe than batting properly, with technique and patience and the lack of bowling now (due to restricted overs and field restrictions!) means that cricket is losing the art of batting. it’s producing hitter after hitter and bowlers will fade away as there is no reward for being a bowler.

  • You’re right that cricket has always been a bit of a minority sport, much more often played in private schools than state ones and easily ignored by children when set against the great god of football. My guess would be the ECB officials of whom you speak didn’t come across it via terrestrial TV but via their well-paid for educations in some of southern Englands greatest charitable tax-relief havens disguised as schools.
    Given that cricket has historically been rather hidden from view and difficult to engage people with, what they should have done but didn’t was make the most of a moment like 2005. When cricket is on the front, middle and back pages and is the first story on the news, you have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to grab thousands of new participants and millions of new fans. That was the time to focus on clubs and public parks, to put more resources into state schools and schemes to get children from non-privileged backgrounds playing some kind of cricket in their spare time. But what happened next? Cricket on Sky. Some misdirection about “Chance to Shine” whose funds come mostly not from the ECB or Sky. And nothing much else or since.
    I think that was one of their biggest mistakes this century. And, as we know, they’ve made quite a few. But most sports would kill for that kind of chance to grab the public imagination. When cricket had it, the powers that be totally messed up.

    Still, is anybody that surprised?

    • You probably know this anyway, but just to clarify, the decision to sell out to Sky had already been made before the 2005 Ashes began. Matthew Engel wrote about it in his notes for the 2005 Wisden (published April 2005), and then wrote about it in much more coruscating fashion a year later. Because The Oval was the last day of FTA cricket, it is easy to forget the actual timeline.

      Of course, this means that the decision was taken during a year in which England’s Test cricket team was unbeaten, and was playing its most attractive cricket since the early 1980s, which is scarcely any more forgivable.

      This article is a helpful snapshot:

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2368967/MPs-looking-for-answers-over-Sky-sell-off.html

      • What’s interesting is that in 2009 the DCMS made a draft proposal to restore the Ashes to the protected list of sports events which must be made available on free-to-air television. The ECB furiously lobbied against the move.

        Shortly after the present government took office in 2010 the new sports minister, Hugh Robertson, decided to postpone a decision until 2013, citing the complications of the digital switchover as the reason.

        http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/front_page/8841725.stm

        Robertson’s boss at the DCMS was Jeremy Hunt, the secretary of state, who was criticised in many quarters for his seemingly improper relationship with News Corp. They are the largest shareholder in, er, BSkyB, owner of Sky Sports. Hunt’s boss, David Cameron, was at the time having country suppers with News International chief exec Rebekah Brooks.

        http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/cameron-and-hunt-let-off-lightly-with-conflict-of-interest-warning-8368363.html

        2013 has come and gone. As far as I can make out – correct me if I’m wrong – that 2009 draft list has been quietly forgotten about.

        • You’re right, Maxie. I’ve been looking into this of late. Not only has 2013 come and gone, but afaict there has been no press or political scrutiny of the decision to shelve the review. Note though that this does not mean it is government policy to not have Ashes on FTA – they have just never taken a decision on it.

          • My strong suspicion is that the Tories kicked it into the long grass and hoped we’d forget about it. Before taking office, in 2009, Hugh Robertson was already talking about keeping cricket on Sky.

            Whether the government’s stance was influenced by their demonstrated closeness to News Corp is perhaps outside the remit of this blog, but you can probably guess what my instinct is.

  • It would be nice if we had a few marketable stars too. We need another Flintoff or Botham. Characters with broad appeal. Maybe Stokes could be that guy? However, I fear that individuals aren’t valued in the current set up. The ECB would rather have XI Cooks; guys who appeal to their own demographic and not the broader public. Now what was that saying about too many Cooks?

  • It seems to me that the future of cricket in England is down the pub. I’ve worn my V-neck cricket jumper all day today but haven’t yet been to the pub – I’m now going to correct that – see ya!!!

  • I don’t really understand the concept of not being good enough for saturday league cricket. The lower levels of saturday league cricket features mainly the 13s and under, the 65s and over, and some french bloke in tracksuit bottoms who calls the bat “the stick”.

    If you’re not good enough to compete with that… how do you move around at all?

  • Firstly, thank you Maxie for a really brilliant article. It is refrehing to read something that isn’t warmed over press releases. Oh for a world in which paid reporters on large media outlets were prepared to ask for facts and figures and engage in analysis. Do keep it up, if yo want a research assistant let me know.

    Secondly, do we have any stats on the average age of those surveyed? Is the drop off attributible, in any way, to older players hanging up their boots, but the younger, post 2005 generation not replacing them?

    Finally, lets remember that ECB do not run cricket in this country. They are self appointed as the board of ontrol, just as the MCC is the self appointed of cricket. If I had to choose a home for cricket, I’d pick Hambledon Down or the maidans of Bombay. Cricket is older and deeper than the ECB. It certainly lives outside of the neo-liberal, city-boy model. We can, and do, nourish that. Keep pricking the bubble of the ECB illusion.

    • Many thanks, Grenville – I appreciate your kind words.

      On Friday afternoon I e-mailed a few follow-up questions to the ECB press office – if and when they reply, I’ll let you know what they say.

      And I completely agree with you. Cricket does not belong to the ECB, and certainly not the MCC, a private club which appropriated the game as their own properly. Cricket belongs to everyone.

      • The most worrying thing about this whole affair is how many commentators appear to STILL be completely missing the point, and describe amateur cricket solely in terms of a “route to professional cricket” or a means of “raising revenue”, rather as a completely self-contained ends in itself.

        Amateur cricket is far more important than the professional circus, always has been and always will be.

  • Are there any actual figures for the number of households that have SKY Sports? I know SKY have around 9m subscribers (I assume this is the number of households with access to SKY, rather than individuals with SKY in their household), but how many of these get the Sports channels? Also, how many have access via the likes of Virgin Media/Tiscali? I’d like to know just how reduced this potential viewing figure is, or if it is something that I moan about because I personally don’t like paying a subscription for TV…

    • I think its about 1 in 8 households. That is bad enough, but when you consider that 99% of sky sports subscribers are football fans with little or no interest in cricket, you start to see the issue.

      As a cricket fan you’d have to be very rich or very stupid to sign up for Sky. It works out at basically £10 for every game they show.

      • There’s a coruscating section in Pietersen’s book about the drop-off in viewing since 2005. That summer, something like 39% of the TV audience, which numbered in the many millions, were women. Maybe that’s still true now, but it would come as a surprise.

        The absence of cricket from FTA television is a scandal which far outstrips what happened to Pietersen.

  • I’m one of those who doesn’t play as much as I did. I guess during my student/teen days I had all the spare time in the world, hence playing Saturday, Sundays and even evening league too. Now if I tried to play cricket seriously I’d be giving up my summer. I’d much rather turn out for my local pub side 4-6 times a summer, laugh trying to bowl googlies, be completely out of nick with the bat, and enjoy myself. I already give up my winter weekends to football.

    • I think that’s the other issue (one of many)… you say you don’t have time to play cricket but have time to play footy in the winter.. maybe it’s down purely to people choosing to play another sport. It’s how it’s always been and will always be.. however, given the rise in population IF the game was run properly the numbers would rise in line with the % of the population.

      I believe that there are lots of reasons why cricket is in decline. Not being on TV is a big one, Clubs are dying and only being replaced in small abouts by a few big clubs having more than 2 teams.. that’s not what ‘we’ should want, big clubs are VERY VERY VERY bad news for grass roots cricket as they are the ones who suck in players, treat them badly and we lose them to the game (and they are the ones who promote paying of amateurs and poach etc).

      ‘we’ should remember what made the game good.. 50 overs a side, non restricted bowling (raised bowling levels compared to limiting their overs!!), draw cricket allows far more variations in games and makes people more tactically aware (win lose really is stupidly easy to play and capt!). T20 has it’s place, its what should be played in PE lessons, at schools, weekdays etc because it’s quick and easy but saturday league should be there to be the pinnacle of the amateur game, promote all the values and not as it is, turning into a biff-a-thon.

      there are many other reasons but we could be here all day.

      From someone who was drawn into the game in 2005 :)

  • If grassroots cricket is to revive in England, 2 things need to happen:

    1) Free-to-air coverage;
    2) England winning.

    The reason 2005 was so important was that both those conditions were met. If England had won the Ashes behind a paywall, nobody would have noticed.

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