I’m a cricket fan and I know this places me in a minority. Moreover, I’m a fan of four-day county matches, which places me in a minority of a minority.
That’s not to say I don’t like ODIs and the Twenty20 format. But speed cricket is no way to learn how to compete at international level in five-day tests.
County cricket is unloved by regional newspapers nowadays. Editorial budgets are too squeezed to allow for journalists spending a whole day covering matches only for their reports to be read by few people.
Publishers and editors, even if reluctantly, have turned their backs on the county games. Indeed, many one-day matches are not covered by staff writers either.
It’s no wonder that David Hopps, editor of the cricket website ESPNcricinfo, should lament the “indifference” to cricket by “the traditional newspaper sector.”
But that indifference is no media conspiracy against the sport. It simply acknowledges the public’s lack of interest. There is no audience for cricket reports and, going on my last visit to a Sussex home game at Hove, precious little audience of any kind.
In pointing out that much of the county coverage that does exist is financially supported by the England and Wales Cricket Broad (ECB), Hopps writes:
“The world for a cricket writer in England, beyond the international circuit, is an unforgiving one, and the resilience and talent of those who find a way to survive is deeply impressive.
The few who remain, and remain entirely independently, continue to provide vital surveillance of the professional game, striving to keep it honest, challenging its decisions – or lack of them.”
He places his faith instead in social media, arguing that the 18 first-class counties aggregate more than half a million followers on Twitter, with even more on Facebook.
He also mentions ECB’s @countychamp Twitter feed. But, I note sadly, it had a mere seven tweets in the course of the past week.
As if that isn’t bad enough, the Guardian’s Sean Ingle wrote last summer about the small audiences for TV coverage by Sky Sports of test matches. He wrote:
“As things stand, English cricket is in danger of becoming a sporting version of the Church of England, with an ageing demographic who attend because they always attend, and believe because they have always believed.
Meanwhile younger generations will barely notice its slow and graceful slide into irrelevance.”
I fear he is right. I have tried to enthuse my grandsons with the joys of cricket, without any success. The most sporting of the trio is a football fanatic and shows an aptitude for tennis too.
He has good eye-to-ball coordination, but my attempts to get him interested in cricket - buying kit, bowling at him, sitting him in front of televised tests - has not changed his mind.
Like all but one of his school friends, he just doesn’t see the point (and his school cannot be faulted because, to its credit, it provides ample cricket facilities).
He indulged me for a while by watching a session of England’s third test against Sri Lanka, but I could tell he was bored despite Jonny Bairstow’s excellent knock.
I accepted long ago that cricket in Britain was gradually becoming something of a niche sport. Now I fear it will vanish altogether in the not-too-distant future.
But don’t blame the mainstream media. Newspaper content - especially lack of newspaper content - reflects an uncomfortable reality about the growing unpopularity of a game I have loved all my life.
