No 84, April 20 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
No 84, April 20 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟤 Champ Week 3 previews, Week 2 reviews 🔴 Ballance retires 🟣 The dangerous ageism of labelling older fans 'a problem' 🟢 Saudi Arabia T20 threat 🔵 Oh Mickey (Arthur), you're so fine
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I posted this photo on the first morning of Essex's game with Lancashire last Thursday. I have tweeted shots with a similar sentiment before and they have always proved surprisingly popular. In a few days, it had garnered almost 80,000 impressions and 500 likes. The point is simple. People DO watch county cricket. Not in big numbers, certainly not enough to support any argument in favour of maintaining the game’s status quo but, still, the majority of Championship days I attend are watched by a crowd of four figures. The bigger ones like the opener at Middlesex last week had over 2,000 in for a couple of the days.
But, it seems, we are the wrong sort because the picture provoked the usual too "pale, male and stale" response.
Of course, it is.
This form of the game is pitched towards older generations and played when other demographics are much less likely to watch. But, also, what do you expect the complexion of a county crowd to be when, over the past generation, the game has not been played in state schools, kept off free-to-air television and the county version has never received anything approaching proper marketing support. The seeds of future support were not sown so fallow decades must be expected.
But there is much more going on here.
Much of that response to the picture feels like straightforward ageism, one prejudice we seem happy to ignore. Cruises, bowls, Countdown and county cricket - these are things invented to keep the oldies amused while they wait for their care home room. Otherwise they are just “a problem”. I joke but it is deadly serious. Quite rightly, women have long complained about society turning them invisible at the appearance of the first grey hair. Believe me, it happens to men in the work place in their 50s. Perversely, the UK now expects you to work until your late 60s but deems you too old for employment after your late 40s. That is why this sector of society walked away from the workforce in the aftershock of the Pandemic lockdown and have had to be enticed back. It is closely linked to an horrific stat - "since around 2010, males aged 45 to 64 years have had the highest suicide rate" in the UK. It should be no surprise when we are taught to value ourselves through work, status and money while, at the same time, ‘expecting’ men to be strong and silent. Loss of identity, meaning and purpose both ruins and takes lives.
The graph of lifetime happiness comes in the shape of a smile. It is high in your youth and Autumn years when responsibilities are low. But, in midlife, work worries coupled with the last years of dependent children and ailing parents hang heavy on your mental health.
I am deep in that mire right now at 53. So last week I soothed my soul with a couple of sessions of county cricket. Thirty years ago, this type of therapy would not have worked. I did not watch Championship games and saw only a little of the one-day stuff. Therefore it is so simplistic to argue the entire audience for domestic red-ball cricket is dying out. Streams and social media suggest there is interest across the age groups but, right now, the younger ones are busy doing other things. There is every reason to suggest some will be back when their lives slow down to a pace akin to county cricket. In middle age, many of us suddenly start to feel in step with the longer form of the game as we have tired of the whirlwind nonsense of other sports. I am looking at you here, football.
Ironically enough even T20 is criticised for attracting a football-style crowd. Clearly, they are the wrong sort too. Though the demography of Surrey's Blast ticket buyers in 2019 were exactly what we all wanted - new, young, female - and they still shunted the event from its prime position to throw buckets of hidden cash at the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named.
But, having been in the crowd at Chelmsford, I'll tell you one area in which the photo seemed much more representative - social class. An area increasingly seen as the key issue in the growth of the game in the UK. Of course, there is no way I can be sure but it did not feel like 52 per cent of the crowd went to a fee-paying school (like the ratio of Junior Ministers), or even 43 per cent (like the English-qualified county cricketers or news journalists). It felt a bit more like seven per cent, the actual ratio within the country. Diversity does not start and end with what you can see in a photograph.
The picture also fails to portray what happened an hour so later at the start of the lunch interval. As the crowd dispersed, a few children carrying bats hurdled the advertising boards and sprinkled themselves around the parameter of the pitch. They were followed on by parents and some grandparents, who turned their arms.
And thus the time-honoured transfer of sporting affection from older to younger generations continued once more.
You underestimate this at your peril.
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Week 2 Review
County cricket: Warwickshire go top with Surrey lurking in second (Guardian)
Ollie Pope blitzes Hampshire as Surrey register first win of season (Cricinfo)
From county to country? 5 players impressing domestically ahead of Ashes summer (The Independent)
Yorkshire complain following abandoned match against Gloucestershire (Mail)
Essex's Sam Cook sets his sights on breaking into England's Test team (Mail)
Jamie Porter and Mohammad Abbas aren’t moving on (King Cricket)
Week 3 previews
There’s a different preview in every link.
Div One
Somerset vs Lancashire
Northamptonshire vs Hampshire
Kent vs Essex
Middlesex vs Nottinghamshire
Div Two
Worcestershire vs Gloucestershire
Glamorgan vs Durham
Sussex vs Yorkshire
Signing: Agar (Kent - overseas - next 4 Champ games)
News, Views and Interviews
County cricket: Can Sussex reap the rewards for investing in youth? (The Cricketer)
Haseeb Hameed on Ramadan - 'Faith puts our careers into perspective' (Cricinfo)
Jonny Bairstow says request to keep wicket for Yorkshire is a 'non-story' (BBC Sport)
Jonny Bairstow on track to return to action against Glamorgan at start of May (Cricketer)
Labuschagne's 'sole focus' on county wins ahead of Ashes (Cricket.com.au)
Cricket history buried in rogue Hampshire Chronicle (Hampshire Chronicle)
INSIDE COUNTY CRICKET: Bizarre job-share for Arthur and Somerset shirt controversy (Mail)
Surely it would be easier and potentially more lucrative for Mickey Arthur to leave Derbyshire and return to the role of full-time coach of Pakistan. The common sense of a sporting career suggests that’s what he should do. Or, at least, it is the norm. In county cricket, we have seen Leicestershire's best move to Nottingham. Key Derbyshire talent got to Lancashire. And there was a period when Surrey were seemingly happy to hoover up anyone who had a decent season. But Arthur has stayed. It could be down to his belief in "the project", the perspective a long career gives us, simple happiness or merely honouring personal and professional promises he has made.
Whatever, Mickey Arthur has been a breath of fresh air in county cricket. He is welcome to stay as long as he likes.
Also, the Mail seem to be stepping up their coverage of county cricket. Very good to see.
The County Championship could ultimately go the way of the Royal London Cup (Yorkshire Post)
Unfortunately, I believe this is correct. But let's not single out the Championship. If the growth of franchise cricket is left unchecked, unregulated and taken to its logical conclusion, it applies to the Test game too. Certainly, when the generation brought up with a T20 and IPL focus become the majority of the cricket-playing fraternity.
Pride of Lions Day proves a hit among young members (Surrey CCC)
County distances itself from Middlesex Schools Cricket after racist and offensive tweet (Times) ($)
Cricket history buried in rogue Hampshire Chronicle (Hampshire Chronicle)
Cricket Society & MCC Book of the Year Award 2023 (Lord's)
Jason Gallian Appointed Chair of the Cricket Committee (Essex CCC)
Breaking ground on the Travelodge at The Kia Oval (Surrey CCC)
Yorkshire could face wait until July to find out CDC sanction (Cricketer)
Delay, delay, delay. Wait, wait, wait. This is serious, delicate and presumably mired in legalities. But it is just not good enough.
Gary Ballance retires after failing to find “happiness” after Azeem Rafiq scandal (Times) ($)
Saudi Arabia in talks with IPL over new T20 tournament. (2023) (Times) ($)
Saudi Arabia woos IPL to set up world’s richest cricket competition (Sydney Morning Herald) ($)
Cricket at the Olympics? (Economic Times)
Saudi Arabia has been throwing cash at the elite of the elite in sport over recent years. Anthony Joshua fought there, Cristiano Ronaldo plays there and F1 races there. Their golf tournament has split the sport and the Saudi-backed purchase of Newcastle United has quickly turned around the fortunes of the Magpies. The label ‘controversial’ has been attached to all those ventures but money talks in sport. Therefore if stories of a Saudi T20 are true and they are working with India not against them, then it has the potential to lay waste to the current economics of cricket.
It is ironic that while we’ve feared the IPL and the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named would end the red-ball game, the protective dam holding back this seismic change may be broken by the timing of the Major League Cricket in the US and the extreme wealth of Saudi Arabia - two countries with little or no background in the sport.
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