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

Interestingly I spoke to someone who used to do various relatively senior jobs within cricket just this afternoon and he said that he never goes to grounds anymore as the experience on television is just so good.

braveneutral wrote:Interestingly I spoke to someone who used to do various relatively senior jobs within cricket just this afternoon and he said that he never goes to grounds anymore as the experience on television is just so good.

TBH that what people in india, Sri lanka often say as well.
although not many people watch the cricket on the telly in the uk though.

bhaveshgor wrote: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.

When the Warwickshire CEO expected a 60k aggregate crowd, of course he is going to be pleased with the attendance figures. He has surpassed expectations with another 20k through the gates, therefore doing a good job.

A 16,000 average attendance over 5 days against a middling test nation is an impressive turnout, even with a Wednesday start. Very few grounds in England would be able to achieve that, even with marquee tests.

braveneutral wrote:Interestingly I spoke to someone who used to do various relatively senior jobs within cricket just this afternoon and he said that he never goes to grounds anymore as the experience on television is just so good.

Can't get a suntan whilst the watching the game on TV

There is no subsitute for kicking back in the ground and sunworshiping whilst there is a game of cricket on.

Middling Nation are you having laugh ranked higher than england and probably a better team than them as well and top of that a very competitive test and another thing the game played in birmingham full of pakistani people.

if you think the attendance was impressive then you are crazy man.

Well for a fact you know India/Australia so your claim that marquee test won't achieve that will be wrong.
Imho if Pakistan isn't a marquee test than cricket is dead in this country.

Some people may have been put off, considering what happened last time Pakistan toured?

We see but not sure that be the case for 2-4K people anyway I expect SA/WI to be poor as well and maybe even worse considering both those teams won't bring 2-5K fans with them to the games.

WI might be a very hard sale and probably look worse if the pitch is flat and docile.

Actually looking at the interest of cricket in this country I be surprise if any games sell out anymore, and what 2-5 yrs all games mostly were a sell out in this country.

Add the decline of tv viewers and playing numbers and cricket is very sad state especially when england are the 2nd most important country in the sport and barely anyone loves or watches the sport.

Surely if most of the people in this country that play cricket are Asian surely you would expect an asian team to be a sell out and if it isn't surely ECB should be wondering what it could do to get the asian people into the game.

If anything ECB should be promoting the game far more into the asian area get them down into the cricket games and make them attend County/International games because if there is a decline in the attendance in the white folks attending then the only way the number can increase or be stable is if the huge amount of asian people make up the shortfall.

that was one of the reason ECB released an initiative couple of years ago on the matter, since the interest in the white supporters are down, playing numbers are down and tv viewers are down and the only way the damaged could be reduce is if the Asian make up the shortfall plus 6% of county players being Asian suggest a fundamental problem in the area considering the grassroot level is full of Asians.

but yet again just like in 1999 ECB just talk but don't actually do much to get the asian more involved in the game.

Cricket facilities in urban areas are a joke, State school barely play it, I went to a school with loads of Asian and we barely played cricket in school, if they are not careful 2nd or 3rd generation Asian will not play cricket in this country and will be the carbon copies of West indien children with Football/rugby etc being the main sport.

Actually thinking about in the end it was only me that actually watched cricket, about 20-30 played cricket a bit in school but loss interest and mostly played football or did studying in the later years.

Just imagine how many fans are lost or potential players are lost in the urban area and just maybe Cricket could be big again in the urban white/black kids.
Biggest issue is the facilities and playing time in state schools.

At the moment their still quite a lot of asian supporter ECB could tap into but if they take so long to make use of it then those number will decline as well and could be like the west indies kids in the country where Cricket not played, not watched and their turn into those people that think cricket is long/boring etc.

Really the most effective way would be to get Asian supporters into the ground and I reckon most might convert into English supports as a 2nd team.
went to my first game in 2014 been to a cricket game every year since.

The ashes games are sell out's, I think?

Pakistan are a decent side, but do lack a player who some might want to pay and see. The Windies in the mid 2000's were pretty average but you'd put your money in your pocket if you had a chance of watching Lara bat.

As I've said previously, Pakistan are not a big draw in England despite the expat community in some areas. They may be a good side, but they lack the star power and have a fairly chequered past on these shores. If England had won at Lord's there would have been even less general interest in this series.

Average crowd on Day 1 so far.

crowd look full right now so people took ages to get in surprise by that since oval generally been an easy game to get into while i was working there for the blast.

Edgbaston was quite poor though long queues for toilet, getting in and was an pretty awful ground.
prefer lords, TB and oval although haven't actually been to oval barring work there.

Went to see WI at Lord's two cycles (I think) ago and it was empty despite good weather so wouldn't be shocking if it was the same next time.

braveneutral wrote:Went to see WI at Lord's two cycles (I think) ago and it was empty despite good weather so wouldn't be shocking if it was the same next time.

Think WI a guaranteed tough sale but reckon SA might have empty seats that were not seen before.

at the moment cricket is a tough sale especially for the price.
I know people here would disagree since we are cricket fans but paying 60-80 pounds + is a lot to pay for the cricket especially as most people can only afford maybe 2 tickets a year.
with england hosting 7 test, 10 odi and 2-3 t20 that works out as England needing 500,000 thousand people liking the cricket which is a lot of people, although with some people attending multiple days you could probably say cricket needs to attract 450,000 thousand people.
this is only an estimate since I calculated the capacity as 25,000.

Not sure Cricket is big enough in this country to expect 450,000 people to turn up for the cricket.

Cricket barely use to get 2M when it was FTA so very hard to expect 450,000 people to turn up if the general fans stop coming to the games for various reasons.

Got to stage where people were not even buying tickets that cost 30-40 pound in Birmingham.

To be honest it's remarkable as I have friends and family who aren't interested in cricket at all but popping down to the T20 has become a post-work socialising thing.

braveneutral wrote:To be honest it's remarkable as I have friends and family who aren't interested in cricket at all but popping down to the T20 has become a post-work socialising thing.

at the moment think they taking a lot of the potential test match goers since going to a few t20 games is more cheaper, better viewer and more easier than test matches.
not only you I have my self seen it at work and the couple of the t20 games I been this year and I never been to a t20 game before or any domestic game barring that essex vs middlesex county championship game in 2011 that I bunked school to watch.

last time I worked in oval, few americans/japanese women came to see it and a lot of female at the games but a lot of it was workmen coming to see the cricket after work with friends or clients.

so probably got to the stage that tickets need to get cheaper if they want attendances to get better since with the price of the tickets people can't afford to attend all the games to get a full house in all England games or their choosing to spend the money elsewhere.

TBH not a fan of seeing empty seats in the country especially if the prices are expensive since people could be going to the game and potentially falling in love with the game or more middle class or lower class people could afford the tickets.
coming from middle class or lower class family paying 50 or 60 pounds is a lot especially for people that don't really go to sporting event so don't know how much the tickets should cost.