opinion/death of cricket

The death of English cricket

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I started to write this page before the ignominious surrender at The Oval. As a consequence of that, some of these thoughts have now been rehearsed in other places. However, this page is not about England's current position as the worst Test team in the world; it is, and was always intended to be, about the death of the game in this country, not the ineptitude of the current national side. However, I have also written something about that ineptitude, entitled "Where now for English cricket?".

Not with a bang, but with a whimper, as someone once said. English cricket is, slowly, dying.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a fan. I love cricket. I don't mind the limited overs game, but it's real cricket that I love: first class games and, above all, Test matches. The numerous fluctuations during four or five days of play, the knowledge that things might change within a moment. There can be few better ways of spending a summer's day. But I fear the game is running out of time.

I've heard all the talk about how the grass roots of the game are in fantastic shape, but you can prove anything with statistics, and frankly it just isn't true. The truth is that they're drying up. Of course there are youngsters playing the game, and some of them are clearly very promising. The question is not just whether that latent talent will be nurtured and encouraged and end up in the England team as the new Botham and Gower (which somehow I rather doubt), but whether anyone will actually care. Cricket just isn't what it used to be.

It would be easy to blame the hegemony of football in sporting life. Football has encroached further and further into the traditional cricket season, ending later and beginning increasingly early, and that's not including the various tournaments (World Cups and European Championships) which take place through June and July. Even in the break between one season ending and another beginning, the back pages are full of transfer talk and other football-related matters - football claims the headlines. But that's also too easy, because the rise and rise of football is a two-way thing; if the fans weren't interested, the papers wouldn't print it. You can only hype something so far. There were certainly enough headlines about England's demise at The Oval, Manchester United's simultaneous win at Highbury notwithstanding. Cricket still does make headlines when there is something to be said which people might want to read. But it won't for much longer. The so-called national summer game is losing its all round appeal. The lack of full houses for Test matches no doubt has a lot to do with poor performances, but the decreasing interest in cricket as a sport, both participative and spectator, means that it will be increasingly difficult to captivate the target audience, especially amongst the young, and turn this trend around

The fact is that cricket is out there in the market-place, its dominant position in the summer months challenged by various alternatives, and it isn't faring too well. I don't just mean how many people turn up to watch, or follow games on television or radio, but how many children are attracted to the game, follow it, play an impromptu game in the park. Cricket is becoming a minority sport. Attendances are poor, and not only because people are at work - Saturday attendances are also dreadful at county games, even games between top sides.

Part of the problem is, I think, that you can't teach someone to love cricket, or even to appreciate it. You can explain the rules, but then they either see it or they don't. That doesn't help in the competitive market for our time in an age where everything seems to be so hurried, and time is at a premium. We live increasingly in an "instant hit" society. In an age where jam tomorrow is rejected not just because of the timescale, but because it's only jam, cricket lacks the intensity provided by many other sports. It is endlessly fascinating, but it's a long-term, slow-burner kind of fascination which loses out alongside other, more immediate forms of excitement. I still watch, and listen, but I am ever more aware that I am in a minority.

The sad fact is that we have, by and large, been reduced to a nation of armchair fans, watchers, couch potatoes. People do play sport, but young people do so far less than they used to. The talented play just as hard as ever, but it's the average, ordinary person who's stopped. When they have a spare hour or two, with their friends, there is much more on offer to them, much of which does provide that "instant hit" - television, videos, computer games. We were encouraged into the garden to play; in other countries, no doubt with better climates, people "do things" in their spare time, often out of doors. For some reason, we often don't do very much any more.

I think there are other reasons, too, why cricket comes off so badly. People say that it's expensive, and it is to do it properly, but I used to play with my brothers and use a tree as the wicket if that was the only thing available. But I wonder, now, whether we would play as often as we used to. We would go to the playing fields (ah yes, there used to be playing fields) on our own and play for an hour or two. Would our parents allow us to do that now? Children can hardly play in the street in front of their house, these days, such is the fear of crime. And gardens are, by and large, not the place for cricket; you just need a bigger space than gardens allow for, even if your parents don't mind you hitting the ball as hard as you can into the flower beds for four (sorry Dad!). Besides which, cricket is a technical sport. Anyone can play it, but to play well takes a good deal of application and a lot of time.

And there is another, more complex reason. I would sum this up by saying that cricket is not tribal in the way that football is. Fans don't identify with their local county sides in the same way that football fans do. The reasons for this are no doubt complex, but I shall highlight two, one historical, the other all too current. Football, traditionally, was the working man's game. Fans supported their local team, and went along to support them in vast numbers. Cricket never had that kind of mass appeal. It was, by and large, the game of the gentleman. The working man couldn't go along to support - the games took place while he was working. Now, of course, football fans often support a Premiership club rather than their local team - but they all have a team. Cricket just isn't like that. People who live in Nottingham may hope that Nottinghamshire win, but they don't go along on a regular basis to cheer them on, except perhaps if they get to Lord's for a one-day final. By and large, people don't care much about cricket. It doesn't change their life, or lift their spirits. Your work colleagues don't talk about the game the next day, or laugh if your team has been soundly thumped. This is the result of the cultural background of cricket, and it's hard to see how it could be changed overnight. Besides, how many of us really feel any affinity for a county? And, at the same time, the powers that be have done their best to exacerbate the problem over the last couple of seasons. Can anyone tell me what day of the week a four-day game starts on? The three-day system was easy (start on Saturday and Wednesday, Sunday League on a Sunday). Now, a county championship match might start on any day of the week, and might include Sunday play. The CGU National League, the replacement for the old John Player Sunday League, is based generally around Sunday play, but games take place on all sorts of odd days. That doesn't only make it more difficult to plan to go to a game, but also to watch out for results. I used to know that I could check the results by looking in the newspaper or on Ceefax on given days; now I find a whole range of scorecards from different stages of games in different competitions whenever I look. It has become more difficult to follow a county side's fortunes at exactly the time when cricket needs to be making itself more accessible.

There are some interesting initiatives, like the new 25-over a side competition - although I do wonder what effect that's going to have on players who are already exhausted - but there is a danger that this is simply pandering to the lowest common denominator. By raising still further the profile of the one-day game, what are we going to do to real, five-day cricket? People will still care, of course, in the way that I care whether or not the hockey team wins, but will they care enough to attend, or to watch? If interest drops too far, there's a danger that cricket will be marginalised on television - and that really would be the beginning of the end. That day is still some way off, but I can see it coming.

I hope that I'm wrong. I hope that, in the next couple of years, England has a vibrant, winning team, and attendances are up and interest soaring and cricket back where it belongs at the centre of the summer sports scene. But somehow, I can't see it happening.

Send a comment - no more than 500 words - in response and maybe I'll put it on this page as an answer.

Written by Jon Renyard
Last updated 26 August 1999