Australia’s got a great cricket team, even won the last World Cup against India. Kangaroos got the most Cricket World Cups, yet old lads today know Ponting and Gilchrist, but not Warner or Smith, Travis Head. In schools, no one’s talking about cricket anymore. Wont see kids or lads playing cricket on grounds. What’s going wrong?
Source: SnooMacarons1573
37 Comments
because it’s fragmented all over paytv now
Why would kids care and watch cricket when they can play a video games with their mates? Also went to school with Head and he was a fucking freak at lunch time.
Not on free to air as much
The Test, ODI and T20 teams are all filled with different players. Harder to make stars when they don’t play as often
No free to air. Put both forms of pyjama cricket behind a paywall
Why watch cricket when you can watch paint dry?
Covid made me dislike sports stars a lot.
I will never pay for sports now.
It’s almost al paywalled now.
It’s prob too slow for the new kids with no attention span.
Cricket is big among South Asian immigrants, but it’s also kinda a old persons game, or at least I feel it has that stigma.
There is no where to play cricket anymore. Suburbs are getting denser and denser with less outdoor and living space for playing cricket. Kids are less likely to be allowed to go down to the nets at the park by themselves anymore.
CA decided to chase short term money at the expense of long term success.
What you are seeing is the predictable result.
Is it?
Because it’s boring
Plus cricket gets talked about heaps when you can actually watch the games or the games mean something…
It’s doing as good as ever. Cummins, Head, Smith, Starc and others are still some of the biggest names in Australian sport, during summer every oval has cricket being played and on holidays around Christmas the beaches and caravan parks are packed with cricket games. The crowds and tv numbers were very good last summer (except Perth) even though it was only Pakistan and the Windies. It’s only really the paywalled odi and t20I series that are ‘dying’
There’s multiple factors at play.
1) A lot of it isn’t available free-to-air
2) Potentially over saturation with all of the hit and giggle T20 leagues.
3) Shorter attention spans of audiences now
4) Lots of other sports competing for viewers
5) A plethora of other entertainment options
There’s a few reasons, but there’s probably more.
It was cultural to have the cricket on tv … so many classic ODIs on 9 …
Memories of Bevan carrying the team to victory on a run chase.
I only watch domestic cricket now. I refuse to watch Australia play. I’ll only resume when Smith & Cummins retire. Current generation are more interested in IPL instead of playing for their country.
I used to worship our tradition of cricket, especially under Alan Border and Steve Waugh. Personally speaking, I lost heart and faith in our national side over the sandpaper scandal. I’ll never view our side with the same reverence, ever again.
It used to be about the personalities, they exemplified Australian culture, we don’t really have Australian culture anymore and our cricketers are a bunch of overpaid, spoilt, pretentious twats.
As a child, I was half convinced that nobody actually likes it and that literally everyone was doing the whole “emperor has no clothes” thing when it comes to pretending that they enjoy it.
That opinion hasn’t really changed. I’ll automatically assume that anyone who loves it with a passion is a very boring human.
Maybe RSA? It’s just not the same at the XCG anymore?
because its boring as fuck.
The beginning of the end was they sold out cricket to pay tv and took it off ABC radio.
As a die hard, I lost all interest and could hardly name a handful of players nowadays
It’s a shit sport
Short-form videos are now super prominent, which means people won’t spend more than 60 seconds on something. Cricket doesn’t really fit into that world.
I grew up loving cricket – spent hours playing o the backyard and out in the streets, looked forward to summer every year. Have been to at least one day of a test almost every year. I grew up in WA, and for a while worked near the WACA, and would clock out early pretty often to get the last session of a shield match. Maybe it’s me that’s changed, I do feel like the administrators of the game are heading down a rugby union path, but maybe it’s just the Indian dominance of the ICC and the disruption of the IPL have meant that the sport has fundamentally changed. Seems like there is a belief that more cricket and faster cricket means more crowds and more money, but at some point I just gave up trying to follow it all, and the dependable rhythm of test cricket as the pinnacle of the sport and the backbone of summer are probably gone for good.
Too many sports. Too much entertainment. People’s attention spans are limited. If we have 3 hours to watch something, I think most people have too many options.
Most Australians have always found cricket boring. 95% of the time, cricketers are just standing around with their hands on their hips waiting for the next ball to come their way. Bowlers take 5 minutes in between each bowl to dust their pants, chat to the umpire or something and kiss the ball so again, 95% of the time is spent just waiting around for something to happen.
Not enough on free to air TV, and in particular putting cricket on lesser streaming services like Amazon
Too many matches features players without a personal following as CA allows key players – like the Skipper – to skip entire tours, and because they think certain players are white or red bull specialists in a way that was less split than, say, 2000, and because players are more likely to retire from one format at a time. Nathan Lyon hasn’t played ODI since 2019, for example.
The players are less relatable. I don’t relate to Cummins, but I did to Warne, Taylor, Healy. Have a quick guess if I’d rather have a beer with prime Warne, Boon, Gillespie, or Cummins, Khawaga, Hardie.
We’re less dominant than we use to be, partly because of the above reasons, partly because of unfairness from other countries (esp. India), and partly because other teams have caught up to us.
Crappy test matches scheduling- including, treating Adelaide with disdain.
Ditching triangular/quad series
Demoting Australia A
Rule changes.
I feel a greater percentage of matches use to be played at home
It seems there is less Australian international cricket these days, and I think that’s driven by fewer ODI series.
2005 had Aus v Rest of world (test + 3ODI), 6 more tests at home, hosted a triangular odi series, played odi in NZ, five odi against SA, played odi in Bangladesh, and from memory, the first t20 big bash series started…. the glory days.
Because CA let cheaters keep playing and the Australian Captain is some captain planet climate change idiot.
Cricket is the white Australian sport. New Australians/Immigrants have their own interests they follow.
No backyards to play backyard cricket anymore
Is it struggling though? When the ashes start the crowds will be decent, especially after the last series.
Plenty of kids out in the country especially still love cricket and footy. Soccer is the big one for kids in areas where the cultures are more diverse.
Cricket is the only sport I really follow these days, didn’t watch a full game of AFL all year and can’t stand rugby
Pretty sure the Aus/Ind games next few months will be packed
‘yet old lads today know Ponting and Gilchrist, but not Warner or Smith, Travis Head. In schools, no one’s talking about cricket anymore. Wont see kids or lads playing cricket on grounds.’
What are you basing this on. How many ‘old lads’ from Australia that follow cricket do you know? How do you know people are not playing cricket on grounds?
Might be the circles you’re in.
Also when I was growing up, all the old people talked about Chappell, Lillie, Thomo. The generation before them would have talked about Benaud etc..
Pyjama cricket is just less interesting. No one cares about who won a T20 series. BBL is essentially for families.
You bet your ass when the ashes are on everyone talks about it
Because it’s boring.
Every one lost interest after the ball tampering.