Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

I don't think you can expect to sell out grounds on work days, especially out of London no matter what ideas are brought into place. The biggest problem with Test cricket is obligates three days play that are not on weekends, that said, starting a Test on a Wednesday so days 4 and 5 fall on the weekend is madness.

Tbh weekend haven't been sell out either, actually day 1 or 2 tend to be more attended that day 3 or 4 this cricketing summer.
If anything the weekend crowd have Been poor.

There are lots of reasons why people don't go to cricket matches, but there are lots of reasons not to do most things. They only matter if they manage to stifle what level of interest there is. Attendances are poor, essentially, because people don't much want to go. Hearing commentators giving reasons why the crowd is small, is a bit embarrassing. NZ coverage does it a lot. They say no one's there because it's a work day, and then they'll say it's because it's the weekend and they've got other options. There is limited interest in the game. This is further squeezed by cost etc. But when England were popular, Thursdays sold out in advance.

We were having this discussion during lulls in the game yesterday.

Maybe 4 day tests could be the way to go?

Two-and-a-half hour sessions:

12:30 - 15:00
15:30 - 18:00
18:30 - 21:00

36 overs per session equates to 432 over the course of the match.

Afternoon sessions played with a red ball, with a white ball being used in the evening.

Starting on a Friday should mean plenty of cricket to watch on the weekend.

Cheaper tickets available for evening sessions only.

ianp1970 wrote:We were having this discussion during lulls in the game yesterday.

Maybe 4 day tests could be the way to go?

Two-and-a-half hour sessions:

12:30 - 15:00
15:30 - 18:00
18:30 - 21:00

36 overs per session equates to 432 over the course of the match.

Afternoon sessions played with a red ball, with a white ball being used in the evening.

Starting on a Friday should mean plenty of cricket to watch on the weekend.

Cheaper tickets available for evening sessions only.

And on bonfire night all the old cricket records and copies of Wisden are burned.

....and if nothing is done, the game will just wither on the vine.

Not saying it's the perfect solution, just an idea for discussion.

ian if interest in test cricket is going to continue to fade, it will fade away for a four day format just as quickly as a five day one. The WI will never get their public interested in Test cricket again and teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh will never be good enough.

A good point made by Athers - Yesterday they were 9 overs short of the required 90. A 10th of the overs weren't bowled.

Considering the price of a ticket the paying public are getting short changed.

Just saw the cricket I recorded after work wow another poor attendance at a test match in england.

Really can't be many excuses for the poor attendance at a weekend in Birmingham.

Especially with Birmingham marketed the game really well and actively pushed people to try and buy tickets for the game and did spread the word to the pakistani community near the area.

Final figures for today attendance.
15,785.

So about 9K people didn't buy tickets.

bhaveshgor wrote:Final figures for today attendance.
15,785.

So about 9K people didn't buy tickets.

Decent turnout for a Day 4 game, especially when the domestic football season has started (England's national game) along with club cricket played on a Saturday.

No excuses that is poor.

bhaveshgor wrote:No excuses that is poor.

Is it though? Bearing in mind Edgbaston's capacity has been recently increased from 17,000 to 25,000. Attendances haven't declined, merely not grown.

Only way Edgbaston could be filled for any test opposition is if England are World No1 in test cricket and if test cricket it's on Free to Air TV.

Warwickshire CEO on Test Match Special said he was pleased with the attendance. He expected 60,000 and they sold over 80,000 tickets in the end. He said had it been a Thursday start the figure would have been higher.

What did you think he was going to say oh attendance are awful, cricket is dying, less people are watching the cricket.
of course he wanted to make it sound like the attendance was fine.

reckon Edgbaston would be full against india/Australia especially against india if the tickets are cheap, think lords day 5 2011 showed if the tickets are cheap loads of indian will turn up and more would turn up if tickets are available closer to the game talking from past experience most indian only actually try to buy tickets closer to the test or game and by then only usually odi are available test generally are sold out.

Anyway suppose this would mean cricket is more likely to return FTA again.

quite funny how crap a lot of cricket administrators are at their job, actually remarkable cricket is still alive now and not dead ages ago.

about time fan actually spoke against the administrator, since ticket need to get cheaper so the game sell out, more people need to play and watch cricket and cricket needs to be more global.
should be remembered it was because of the fans speaking out against the big 3 that the big plans got u turned or why Giles clarke didn't get to be president of the ICC.

really people shouldn't be happy with the attendance or the way ECB run the cricket, especially with a board that hired giles clarke for so long.