Popularity of cricket waning with summers starved of competitive tension

COMMENT: Cricket is Australia’s pastime, a game with deep ties to our national psyche - but there’s a clear reason why it’s on the decline.

COMMENT

Cricket is Australia’s pastime, a game with deep ties to our national psyche.

But despite its continued ability to bring joy to all Australians - mainly by hoarding the Ashes from the Poms - cricket in this country is cactus.

Once the cornerstone of Brand Australia and its king of summer, cricket is getting rissoled by a perfect storm of new-wave sports and time poverty.

Even with the popularity of our First XI returning to all-time highs, crowds continue to dwindle, office buzz is dead, and cricket nets once flooded with the talent of tomorrow are either empty or being re-purposed for parkour, a sport that also fails when the kids realise the nets don’t have Wi-Fi.

Mystery surrounds the catalyst for cricket’s demise, although experts believe that like most things, it can be safely blamed on the internet.

Online culture has exposed Australia’s meat-and-three-veg palette to a suite of global superstars, replacing household names like Bradman, Warne and Benaud with Messi, LeBron and that loudmouth from YouTube who now punches people.

T20 is cricket’s attempt to capture the attention of an impatient audience. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

Even the romance of a new cricket bat has fallen victim to the web’s wiles.

Once as significant to Australians as buying an engagement ring, the three month’s wages once blown on an SS Jumbo are being squandered on Amazon and online scams.

While cricket continues to thrive in the subcontinent thanks to T20 cricket and cement money, our love affair with the game has soured with the demise of Test cricket.

Like India and England, we still cherish the traditions of the longer form - ‘traditions’ being the warehousing of profits - but tragically the format has become unsustainable for smaller nations, most who survive off meagre ICC funding and the remaining South Africans who aren’t playing for England.

Like any existential crisis, these nations have now abandoned all self-respect by succumbing to the cheap hair-plugs of franchise cricket.

With countries snubbing Test cricket to cop more cash for less work in T20, the longer form’s growth has slowed to a rate that should see it fined 50% of its match fee.

Australia’s recent Ashes series in England was hugely popular. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

This has seen our local summers starved for competitive tension outside of Ashes and Border-Gavaskar series, with the prospect of skinning Pakistan inside three days appealing to nobody except diehards and their multis.

There was a time these budget summers would be rescued by the sex appeal of one-day cricket- but even that’s fallen behind tennis and Call of Duty.

That’s because our ODI side now exists behind a paywall, which sounds pretty tragic but not as tragic as the fact there’s nothing behind it anyway.

If you haven’t realised, our 50 over side doesn’t play cricket anymore. In fact, nobody can recall the last time they played, although you can be 99% certain it was a meaningless made-for-TV series filled with unmemorable caps.

Yep, cricket’s plummet has also been fast-tracked by the game’s fierce drought of characters, with the glory days of Tangles, Pistol and Dizz eclipsed by Patrick, Mitchell and Sids.

Australia’s modern prototype is a green-conscious load-managed gentleman, all who are superb cricketers in their own right but lack the charisma of Doug Walters, a larrikin whose only ‘training load’ was smoking the team’s combined weight in tobacco at gully before wheezing his way to a century in a session.

Australia’s ODI team often play in fixtures devoid of much meaning. (AAP Image/Joel Carrett)

Finally, cricket’s popularity has waned in a society starved of time.

None of us have the time to remain across a rulebook that’s a cross between council by-laws and rugby, especially when we’re too busy admiring Pat Cummins’ magnificent teeth.

To be frank, most of us can’t unlock our iPhones let alone Duckworth-Lewis. Heck, even the umpires can’t get the LBW law right, and don’t ask the average Aussie about reverse swing or setting a field, or even half the players.

There is only one positive about cricket in Australia: at least the Big Bash League is still running - and I mean that literally.

With the game’s year-on-year expansion of the schedule (mercifully reduced for the upcoming season), hopes are high we’ll have the 2018 champs crowned by 2025.

In summary, despite remaining beloved to us all, cricket in Australia is flatlining- and it’s everybody’s fault.

We crave the tradition of Test cricket but don’t have the time to accommodate it, mainly because we’re too busy decrying the bastardised version that’s killing it.