Cricket Australia’s Kevin Roberts disputes claims of exaggerated participation numbers

Cricket Australia has written to the game’s key stakeholders to dispute claims that the sport’s governing body was guilty of drastically overstating its participation figures in official reports.

• Who’s winning the race for Ashes spots?
• Why Dukes ball spells trouble for Aussies
• Aussie women have eyes on Bradman record
• Langer prepares for final ‘brutal’ Ashes cut

Cricket Australia chief executive Kevin Roberts has used a letter sent to key stakeholders to reject claims the organisation has grossly exaggerated the number of participants playing the game.

An investigation by Nine cast doubt over whether CA’s claim that 1.65 million Australians play cricket was accurate, given its discovery that thousands of players logged on the official MyCricket database have multiple entries.

Cricket Australia has used a figure of 1.65 million participants as a badge of honour to promote to sponsors, Government bodies and broadcasters alike, that cricket is the No. 1 sport in the country.

This has angered local clubs who feel it paints an inaccurate picture of battles at the grassroots.

CA chief executive Kevin Roberts insists that participation in the sport continues to grow.

The Australian Cricket Census published by CA on June 30 reported that there were 684,356 registered club cricketers on MyCricket.

However, Nine’s investigation claims that the real figure is 247,060 players and indicated that cricket is more like Australia’s No. 7 ranked sport.

HEALING HAND: Queensland cricket turn to legend in a crisis

BAD BLOOD: Day a nudge left Aussie cricket close to civil war

Roberts has not spoken publicly to answer questions since the Nine investigation, but he has sent a letter to Cricket Australia’s key stakeholders including major sponsors, broadcasters, government bodies and community cricket groups to provide a lengthy explanation.

The letter, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, concedes a disconnect between administrators and community cricket must be addressed, but denies that Cricket Australia has inflated its playing numbers.

Roberts refutes the conclusions drawn by the Nine investigation for presenting “a distorted view of cricket’s health,” adamant that cricket participation continues to grow.

“It’s important to note that MyCricket only houses the competitions of around half of the teams from which registered players are calculated. By only counting individuals listed on MyCricket, SMH (Nine) ignored those competitions not administered on that platform,” reads the letter.

Clubs have painted a different picture as to the health of the grassroots than official CA figures.

“These include school competitions, indoor cricket competitions, other competitions outside traditional club structures and kids in the Woolworths Cricket Blast program.

“All of these are included in the total registered player number of 684,356 that we reported.

“For all competitions within and beyond the MyCricket database, we calculate registered players by multiplying the actual number of teams by an estimated number of players per team over a season.

“…When combining school participation programs and registered players, we reach the total participation figure of 1.65 million.”

The Nine investigation found that some players on MyCricket were counted multiple times, citing one cricketer who had been counted eight times.

Cricket’s popularity remains strong at the top end of the sport, but there are questions over how many people actually play the game.

The Australian Cricket Census is now counted in-house at CA, and acting executive general manager, community cricket, Kieran McMillan admitted in an interview with Nine that there was a “guessing game” element to the data, which the organisation would strive to improve.

Roberts wrote to stakeholders today to defend the counting and data gathering methods used by Cricket Australia.

“While this (figure of 1.65 million) does include some players more than once, like my daughter who plays club and indoor cricket, it’s simply not true to suggest that total participation is inflated by double-counting most or all registered players.

“… We estimate that each traditional senior club team utilises a total of 15 players in a season. People involved in running clubs know that many teams call on more than 15 players in a season to get a team on the park every week, so the estimate of 15 players per team is very reasonable.

“… Like most organisations, we are working to improve our data.”

LISTEN UP: Lynnsanity comes to the latest Cricket Unfiltered podcast as global T20 and Big Bash superstar Chris Lynn joins Andrew Menczel for an exclusive, in-depth interview.

Stream above now, or search ‘Cricket Unfiltered’ on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from, and subscribe today.

The Daily Telegraph contacted various other sports to seek their opinion on allegations they had been outranked on participation lists by contentious numbers, but they refused to comment. Woolworths, the sponsors of the Cricket Blast program, supported Cricket Australia.

“At Woolworths we are really pleased with the impact our partnership is having in the community,” said a spokesman.

“By supporting the junior format of the game we are helping more kids lead an active and healthy lifestyle by participating in the Woolworths Cricket Blast program.”

Roberts outlined his commitment to making grassroots his No. 1 priority, but conceded improvement was needed with the number of registered players in decline.

“What came through clearly to me (from the Fairfax report) was that some within the cricket community don’t feel they’re being heard,” wrote Roberts.

“We acknowledge that the number of registered players in traditional club environments has experienced a gradual decline over the past few years, even though total cricket participation continues to grow at a healthy rate.

“…I understand it will take more than a letter from me to make everything better. It’s on me to lead ongoing consultation and action from all of us at Cricket Australia and the State and Territory Associations who serve their communities.

“We are proud of cricket’s deep connection with local communities and the fact that cricket plays a part in the lives of so many participants across the country.”