England’s Cricket World Cup Feelgood Factor Must Face TV And Tebbit Tests

The euphoria of England’s exhilarating Cricket World Cup final triumph briefly washed over the nation and sparked talk of the long-awaited renaissance of a sport that used to be as popular in this country as football.

While the launch of the Premier League turned English football into a global behemoth, cricket had at least retained substantial popularity, peaking in 2005 with one of the most absorbing and enjoyable Ashes series ever.

But 2005 was also a turning point for cricket, for following that zenith, the sport disappeared behind the TV paywall, acquired for a hatful of cash by Sky TV. While the sport has never been richer it has also become isolated, still adored by its supporters but finding few new fans.

Early in the tournament the host’s anxieties were writ large when the England Lionesses' Women’s World Cup campaign helped tempt millions of viewers into an unexpected football frenzy broadcast live by the BBC, with audiences dwarfing those of the CWC being broadcast on Sky.

The World Cup Final offered a brief glimpse of what cricket could be with a wider audience: in a nod towards the game’s significance, Sky allowed Channel 4 (which had already been carrying the tournament’s highlights) to broadcast the match live on free-to-air TV.

More than 4.5 million people tuned in to the first live international cricket on free-to-air television in Britain for 14 years. A total of 8 million were watching the final overs if the audiences of Channel 4 and Sky are combined. This was a brief and fortunate peak as the drama surprisingly carried into the early evening.

I say fortunate for most of the day the cricket had been out-viewed by rival sports on Britain’s TV sets. For some unfathomable reason, cricket’s overlords had scheduled the tournament final for the same day as two entirely predictable events: the Wimbledon men’s final and the British Grand Prix. The epic battle between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic averaged 6 million viewers and peaked at almost 10 million. Not all of whom would have turned over to watch the finale at Lord’s. The cricket had been scheduled to end before the Wimbledon final’s (late) climax but the Super Over drama dragged it even further into the evening TV schedule. If tennis fans had turned over how many would have been able to understand the weird intricacies of how the game was finally decided?

The Grand Prix averaged substantially fewer viewers (averaging just under 2 million) but, crucially, is also broadcast by Channel 4 and so, during the crucial afternoon session at the cricket, the World Cup final was downgraded to the broadcaster’s multi-channel outlet, More4.

Channel 4’s ambivalence towards the attractiveness of the Cricket World Cup was clearly exhibited by the scheduling of the highlights show usually after midnight. When games were broadcast earlier (10pm was the earliest slot because of the rights deal) they were England matches. On the surface this may seem sensible, but masks a truth about cricket in this country.

One only had to attend any match involving India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or even Afghanistan, to realize that there is a huge, excitable cricket audience out there, it’s just they would mostly fail the Tebbit test.

Almost 30 years ago Conservative government minister Norman Tebbit said: 'A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?'

He later added that some immigrant communities would not assimilate 'because some of them insist on sticking to their own culture, like the Muslims in Bradford and so forth, and they are extremely dangerous.'

It is a state of mind that might not be a million miles from the causes of Brexit. But maybe the integration question needs to be looked at the other way around. 

Highlights of games involving the sub-continental teams may well have attracted substantial TV audiences if scheduled at a more amenable hour. Even the blinkered broadcasters of Britain ought to have been able to see that south Asia is now the heart of the game, the Indian Premier League the juggernaut that has borrowed the brashness that has given football’s EPL such prominence.

That games involving India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were mostly filled with fans supporting those teams was an impressive effort of ticket purchasing, given how difficult most reasonably priced stubs for this tournament were. The noise and enthusiasm of those supporters was energizing. To spend time in their company was to meet Indians with Brummie accents, Pakistanis speaking like true Yorkshiremen, and Bangladeshis straight out of EastEnders.

Sport has long been a tie that binds migrants with their homelands. It doesn’t mean that any of the young south Asians, born here or second or third generation British, wouldn’t want to play for England should they have the ability.

England’s cricket team has tapped into this generation, featuring Bradford-born Adil Rashid and Birmingham-born Moeen Ali. Take that, Lord Tebbit. 

Indeed, the England team is an eclectic bunch, also featuring an Irish captain, Eoin Morgan, and a Kiwi hero, Ben Stokes.

These communities may still identify with their motherlands in sport supporting terms but they love their cricket in a way that surely even Tebbit could appreciate. Or perhaps not, for the old-school English cricketing regime may aspire to a new audience but time spent with the suits, blazers and egg-and-bacon ties that dominate Lord’s (The Home of Cricket) harks back to a Britain that largely no longer exists.

This is a world away from the throbbing hordes at Edgbaston and Headingley, the Bharat Army at the Rose Bowl, and the cuddly-tiger-waving Bangladeshis at The Oval.

The England & Wales Cricket Board needs to embrace and enthuse this audience if it is to re-energize its future. The noise and atmosphere is a long, long way from the traditional image of English cricket but it is the future as seen in the IPL.

Almost all English cricket matches now return behind Sky’s paywall for the foreseeable future meaning any new fans won over by the tournament will have to pay for a subscription if they want to watch this summer’s Ashes or Pakistan’s tour of England next year or India’s tour of these Isles in 2021.

No offence to New Zealand but how much bigger would the TV audience have been for the final if India had not lost their semi-final to the Kiwis?

Come the final's day out on terrestrial television who was watching? Cricket’s traditional audience for sure (minus those attending a strangely scheduled series of domestic matches). But how many women? Children? Members of the new multi-cultural Britain?

English cricket’s existential angst has been tempered by World Cup glory but not yet solved.