Cricket has become entirely absent from most children's lives

[BeautifulGame]

Perhaps the oddest thing about the epic drawn Test series concocted this month by England and New Zealand – 15 days of attritional, glazed and ultimately giddy nil-nil – was the impression both home and away that for all its sense of grand sporting spectacle, its newsworthiness, very few people seemed to be actually watching it. Not really: not given its reach, its nosiness and the lavishness of its televised staging. Delight, but at one vicarious remove seems to have been the general experience. On a separate but not entirely unrelated note, it was for those who did manage to catch a glimpse a great week for air cricket. Yes: air cricket, the cricket that lurks within us all, cricket of the mirror and the brandished umbrella, the purest, most cultishly invisible form of the sport, which tends to foment most effectively during the painful endgame of some gruelling Test Match rearguard. Personally, I added two new shots to my repertoire this week. The Matt Prior hook-shot: compulsive, aerial, fearlessly swivelling (naturally, I already have the Matt Prior offside carve: you cannot, cannot, air bowl to me there). Plus a lovely surprise in the shape of the Peter Fulton legside lean, a willowy rumble off the pads that was doggedly effective over 511 balls in Wellington despite resembling at times the kind of shot a really talented horse would play were a really talented horse ever to make it through the various grade levels and earn, through sheer weight of run-scoring, the opportunity to play Test cricket. The genuine obsessive will play air cricket any time, anywhere and with any roughly equivalent object: a supermarket aubergine, a toothpick, a tea towel. This can be something of a burden at times, perhaps even a mild social disorder. I have a friend who is unable to enter a room full of people – perhaps a party or an informal business meeting – without compulsively and surreptitiously performing a series of elbow-high air-forward defensives. I once found myself performing out of the blue an unexpectedly violent air hook shot with a family-sized tube of Smarties at a children's party – swaying inside the line, full extension of both arms – that involved sending its entire multicoloured contents shooting out of the inadequately stoppered end, skittering off over the floor, into people's drinks, clinking off their spectacles. Frankly the consequences could have been dire. Although, I was pretty careful to roll my wrists and I'm pretty sure most of those Smarties would have fallen short of the man stationed specifically for the shot. It is the air shots of early cricketing heroes that tend to linger longest. My basic air-repertoire, with bicycle pump or ruler or grocery aisle cucumber, features the Chris Broad buttock-waggling legside clip, the effortlessly flicked Viv Richards yawn over deep midwicket, and, of course, the Brian Lara leaping, threshing, lampshade-dislodging back foot force. And in this sense air cricket is at least essentially social, a business of tribute and engagement and private notation. The idea of "being someone", the imitative homage, has always been a key part of learning to play and understand cricket, a sport that is more than most an acquired set of skills, of syncopated movements, a dance to the chin music of time. There is a wider point to all this. Recently, waiting for a bunch of eight-year-olds to finish an indoor coaching session, I was struck by the incongruity of one member of the group. The kid had all the air moves: the Stuart Broad-style finger wagging send off, the languid bat twiddle between deliveries, even the solicitous Team England buttock-pat for a fellow fielder. It was only him, though, for which his coach had an explanation: this boy was the only one there who had Sky Sports at home. The rest of them basically don't see any professional cricket happening at all and so remain happily sui generis. Two Ashes cycles on from 2005, the year cricket in England finally hunkered down behind its TV pay wall, these are our eight-year-old survivors, the dwindling – and, on anecdotal evidence, they are dwindling – diehards of the invisible new world, the beautiful weeds with strength enough to flower up between the cracks left by football and TV and computer screen. It is a peculiar moment all round right now for the spectating public and the England team at its encrypted centre. In the eight years that have followed that brilliant summer of 2005 England have rarely enjoyed such on-field success, while paradoxically cricket itself has never seemed, if not less popular then simply less visible, less tangibly present among us. There will not be another Trafalgar Square reception if England win the Ashes this year, albeit the events of 2005 are perhaps not an appropriate comparison, involving as they did a brilliantly loopy loss of scale, a collective swell of air-excitement that seemed to fit the plastic boom-time tenor of the day, that sense of willed and ersatz prosperity curated by an air-prime minister with air-convictions overseeing the last draught of air-euphoria – Olympics! House prices! Credit cards! – before the end times began. There is no wider legacy now to that brilliant summer, just a sense of gilded shrinkage. England's recent Test match world No1 ranking, a direct result of the monied independence provided by the ECB's swollen coffers, will be paid for in other ways. As playing fields are erased from the urban map and football increasingly fills the sky, cricket has become triumphantly semi-visible for those on the fringes and entirely absent from most eight-year-old lives. This is not to run down Sky Sports, which – for the middle-aged, the pre-converted, hogging the future by monthly subscription – provides absolutely brilliant coverage. And certainly cricket will survive. Kids will continue to play and watch, drawn to the accoutred frowsty barn with its nets and stumps by family or school or the basic joy of bat and ball. If not, perhaps, by the inspiring example of those at the top who – outside the pay-TV bubble, plus of course the enduring joys of radio and web – can offer nothing but dead air.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2013/mar/30/cricket-england-tv-pay-wall Wonder how will the test cricket only fans react when the only cricket the English youth grow up watching is actually IPL :cantstop:

[I6MTW]

Even In India kids are more concerned about football then cricket.

[BeautifulGame]

Even In India kids are more concerned about football then cricket.

Not true

[I6MTW]

Not true

It's true in chennai.

[BeautifulGame]

It's true in chennai.

I am chennaite and its not true.

[I6MTW]

I am chennaite and its not true.

I'm also living in chennai and they don't watch regular matches only IPL at most. Football has become popular.

[deathmonger]

It's true in chennai.

Not true anywhere. It's the upper/upper middle class elite kids who are more interested in football than cricket.

[BeautifulGame]

I'm also living in chennai and they don't watch regular matches only IPL at most. Football has become popular.

Cricket is still far far popular than football in chennai. Yes minor percentage of youngsters like football but even amongst them cricket and IPL is the first preference. Just check the IPL audience and atmosphere. Atmost 90% were youngsters last season

[Jersey #10]

Cricket isn't going anywhere from the subcontinent for a long time. I was like wtf when I saw those kids playing cricket on the ground where OBL's house was taken down in zero dark thirty. Shows how crazy we are

[G_B_]

yeah Cricket will always be number 1 cause India are good at it (compared to other sports). The only real threat to cricket (and its far fetched) is if there is a large hockey renewal. Football will be bit of a non entity cause India are just not good at it. (same for the subcontinent). At the end of the thing that you play if the most popular.

[Executioner]

The reason why people are starting to get interested in Football is because of the excitement generated in football matches. Average cricket matches have 30000 spectators, while Football matches easily get 50000+ spectators. There are only a handful of countries playing cricket, the lack of diversity is a major factor. 90% of cricket fans are from the SC, this stats says it all

[T rex]

Not true anywhere. It's the upper/upper middle class elite kids who are more interested in football than cricket.

its true for Kerala. Kids here like to play/watch football more than cricket

[DomainK]

It's true in chennai.

its true for Kerala. Kids here like to play/watch football more than cricket

Do you guys make these claims based on some legitimate surveys or is it purely based on the handful of kids you know?

[Needforspeed]

Do you guys make these claims based on some legitimate surveys or is it purely based on the handful of kids you know?

Cricket has always been playing second fiddle to football in Kerala. In fact its in recent years that cricket has started gaining an audience in Kerala. Even now in schools and colleges football is the preferred sport. Have made no study, but I am a Keralite and have spent a lot of my life there. Kerala always had quality footballers and athletes as role models. This was lacking in Cricket. Hopefully with a crop of new youngsters coming up, cricket will gain more popularity, but as of now, football is the number 1 sport there.

[BeautifulGame]

its true for Kerala. Kids here like to play/watch football more than cricket

But that's always the case in Kerala. I spent few years of my childhood in Kerala and I didn't even remember anyone playing cricket in school ground or in streets . It's always football. So it's not a new phenomenon . They are an exception in India rather than the norm.

[Detonator]

Not entirely absent.. but quite reduced, thanks to Education mafia and video games.

[rageaddict]

A Club based sport like Football can never overtake Cricket in India. Top footballers will always play in Europe so no chance of Ronaldos, Messis, Van Persies playing in an Indian Soccer league which could keep Indians interested in the sport throughout the year. While Cricket is mainly played on National level. The only time football can get more attention than Cricket is when India qualifies for the Soccer World Cup and that also once ( for a month ) every 4 years.

[Laaloo]

Don't see what's wrong with that. Competition is a good thing. Everyone doesn't need to play cricket and it's not as if we do a good job in developing players at the grass roots level anyways. What's wrong in people playing football? Only if some of the clowns in the Indian team played football as well so we can get rid of them.

[Vilander]

several of my nephews and younger cousins play football or basketball none play cricket. Besides on the topic, its true that IPL is the only free cricket in England as of now, things are going to get funny for English team that grows up watching only IPL.

[Vilander]

Cricket has always been playing second fiddle to football in Kerala. In fact its in recent years that cricket has started gaining an audience in Kerala. Even now in schools and colleges football is the preferred sport. Have made no study, but I am a Keralite and have spent a lot of my life there. Kerala always had quality footballers and athletes as role models. This was lacking in Cricket. Hopefully with a crop of new youngsters coming up, cricket will gain more popularity, but as of now, football is the number 1 sport there.

IM Vijayan ? who else..