Cricket

I was once an obsessive cricket fan.

I watched everything that the BBC would show because the only cricket on TV was on the BBC (apart from a brief spell when ITV were involved.

It was in the early 1970s and I can almost recite out loud the England team I idolised.

There were legends like Geoffrey Boycott, Alan Knott, Derek Underwood and John Snow.

Granted the BBC coverage was a little stuffy and unimaginative but I didn't know any different.

The camera stayed at the same end all day and it didn't occur to anyone, never mind me, to have a camera at both ends of the pitch.

The Test matches were big news and people who weren't necessarily interested in the nitty gritty of the game would talk about it.

And so it continued, throughout the 1980s, 1990s and into the new millennium.  

It was, and remains, our summer game.

TV changed when Sky came along and they bought up many of the most popular events.

Almost all live football went and, following a brief and happy dalliance with Channel Four culminating in the epic Ashes series of 2005, cricket followed.

Step forward to today and there is no cricket on terrestrial TV, apart from the Indian Premier League on ITV4.

I have noticed the difference in people's attitudes.

As a child after school and then an adult after work, I would go home to watch the evening session of whatever Test match was on.

And the next day we all talked about it.

The last Ashes series on terrestrial TV was in 2005 when C4 had the rights and it gripped the nation.  The viewing figures were astonishing.

Four years later, the Ashes were tucked away on Sky and people weren't talking about it, certainly not in the numbers of previous years.

Whereas I could recognise all the top players of my youth, I would struggle to identify most of the England team. I have heard the names, of course, but they are no longer household names nor household faces.

I think it is a mistake by the authorities to place all their cricket with one non terrestrial broadcaster, although it is hard to blame them for taking the money.

And the authorities will doubtless point out that much of the money goes to grassroots cricket and that's true, even if many of the grassroots are actually situated in the more affluent suburbs of cities and smaller towns and villages.

In many state schools, cricket has died out and it is isn't played at all, whilst in private schools the game thrives.

Few of the England players  of today are idolised like Botham, Gower and Flintoff.  

Captain Cook has a great record but your average person would probably not know who he was.  The same goes for the rest of today's players.

Worst of all, we're struck with it.

There is little political will to change the laws as to who can broadcast the game, in many parts of the country, especially in cities the game is of no interest.

Of course, the game will not die - the demand for tickets for international matches remains as great as ever - but I do wonder if, like the Premier League, it will become the plaything of the more affluent middle classes, if it hasn't done already.