English fans are used to getting stuffed by the Dutch, but normally at football and not cricket. After a winter tour that the English Cricket Board (ECB) would like to forget, defeat by Holland in the World T20 was almost predictable.
Complacency was a word trotted out in the aftermath and perhaps this emanates from the very top of the English game.
Cricket as a national sport has real problems in today’s instant, bite-sized society as it struggles for mass attention. There are many reasons for this, not least decisions made almost a decade ago.
In 2005, having finally beaten the old enemy Australia for the first time in eighteen painful years, the ECB cashed in like a down and out finally having come good at the roulette wheel.
Off they rushed to Mr Murdoch and a nation that was captivated by the heroics of Freddy Flintoff in that magnificent summer of 2005 – courtesy of Channel 4 – was now at the mercy of an Aussie again.
Following the latest extension to the Sky deal there will be no live cricket on terrestrial television until at least 2017; the reality is that it is unlikely ever to return.
Industry sources estimate the current four year deal at £280m, broadly in line with the previous deal. As football continues to hugely enhance it’s value to Sky with each successive deal, cricket does less so.
The ECB refuse to accept that this deal is damaging to the game long term. According to Giles Clarke, ECB chairman; “No-one should be in any doubt that our partnership with Sky has been of immense benefit to the wider game“.
He cites recent successes of the national teams but surely we should expect something given the enormous resources available to Team England compared to smaller and more impoverished nations?
As for the club game, things are far from rosy.
According to Sport England’s* recent survey, cricket experienced the largest drop in participants – 22% – of all major sports. As Sport England’s funding is driven by participation levels, this is serious stuff.
*Sport England Active People Survey covering periods April 2012-13 and October 2012-13
The ECB sold the game down the Sky river to fund expensive stadia for meaningless domestic T20 and international cricket; fit only to fill empty Sky TV schedules.
It funds a county game that nobody watches and is as relevant as the Ford Anglia is to current motoring trends.
Critically, from the Ashes win of 2005 to now how did we fare against the Aussies, now we finally had them by the didgeridoo? In this period of heady success the test match score was 13 – 10…to them!
As for Sky, in June 2013 they had 10.54m television customers but it is virtually impossible to find out how many of these subscribe to Sky Sports. However, any analysis of weekly national viewing figures would suggest cricket has a pitifully low audience.
In fairness, cricket is not alone. Football, has falling participation numbers too and is struggling to remain accessible with escalating costs; perhaps recreational sport is becoming the preserve of the middle classes?
With school cricket gone with the Ford Anglia, it survives almost solely in private schools making the game accessible to less than ten per cent of kids. The beautiful game of cricket has vanished from sight for the majority of kids.
But where are the next generation of professional cricketers coming from?
It is not unreasonable to assume, given the career choices available to the more privileged, that standing 22 yards away from Tino the Tornado – armed with a red bullet that will break your jaw in two in less than half a second – a comparatively modestly paid career in professional cricket may not be high on the list.
So the game has issues at both ends of the ladder. Confirming this re the club game, the ECB produced the National Club Strategy 2012 a spectacularly inept document.
One extract states “…adult participation is in decline. There are specific concerns regarding the 16-22 and 25-35 year-old age groups. Club cricket is facing an aging (sic) stock of facilities, people and playing formats.”
Clubs are being held together by old lags with a shorter lifespan than the Bengali Tiger.
They claim that we have record numbers of juniors but this is simply playing with numbers. Undeniably, we are not keeping kids in the game, a fact acknowledged by the ECB 2 years on with Stay in the Game following research by two independent companies.
It contains “a selection of tools and resources…to help cricket reduce the drop off of players…”
Here are some key parts:
1. Opportunity in Open Age Teams – There is a tendency for younger players…to make up the numbers and often there is no opportunity for them to bat or bowl.
2. Banter – …senior players should identify that young players may be offended…by the culture of a senior dressing room.
3. Playing with Friends – Can the club ensure that when a younger player is called up…that they have a friend or two to make the transition feel slightly more normal.
4. Set up a Youth/ Academy Team – The Club can adopt an U19 team to play T20 or a development side to play one-day cricket to allow players to bridge the large gap of joining an open age team.
Cricket is a tough, competitive game that requires courage, skill and dedication. It also requires hours of practice to master subtle skills…or attempt to get close.
As a youngster you grow up in an adult dressing room. This molly-coddling of young people is simply no good for anybody and the document is written for La La Land by the politically correct mob who have never held a bat in their lives.
We are losing young people in their droves because, with the paucity of cricket in their younger years, they are rarely good enough to meet the standard anymore.
We played and practised relentlessly as youngsters – today the X-box is King – the game is just too long for many.
Having coached in the Bradford Junior League since 1999 consider this. Since 2006, with cricket on the crest of an Ashes wave, the league has lost a third of it’s clubs in a cricket heartland.
There will be pockets nationally where the game still thrives but we have lost over 40,000 participants according to Sport England in an eighteen month period so make the judgement.
The senior league I play in also lack any progressive ideas. Another winter has passed and all we have is a new points system and an obsession with scoring by lap-top.
Many of the issues facing cricket are, inevitably, driven by a changing society and we may be ultimately powerless to turn the tide. The game has to change radically to survive yet clubs will still fold as there are not enough players to sustain them.
We have to start again with the schools and only the ECB, armed with its Sky money can really tackle this. So few clubs have the volunteers left to run junior teams these days that, only by aligning those that can to schools, can we start.
Above all there has to be some direction from the highest level to bring about some order to leagues that have barely changed since the Titanic sank. There is a simple lack of joined up thought.
Those that want to continue doling out the cash to Saturday mercenaries should be distinct from the hard core of clubs that may only be able to sustain recreational cricket in its very shortest form in the future.
It may well be that the short game is that which most club cricketers of the future seek to play. “Not in my day” I holler…but I’m too old to count!
Could we get really radical and start earlier to free up families for the evening? A shorter game that does not take up the whole day may have some appeal. And should we really endure the April sleet each year; some parts of the game may opt for a shorter season.
There is yet another strategic plan from the ECB. Champion Counties “…designed to build on the outstanding success of the 2005 plan…and the subsequent 2009 initiative…”
It answers none of the issues at the level of the club cricketer. I got to the bit on climate change and gave up the ghost.
I’ve tried not to sound like life was perfect “in my day” – I love the game and it’s many traditions, the unique skills and, most of all, the wonderful people you meet through it. I only have ideas not a cure-all here. Maybe we are stuffed…again.
As I began by suggesting, complacency starts at the very top and, sadly, the ECB appear to have few answers.
Paul Thompson says
Well written Sunshine! The truth will out!