Being a cricket fan is not easy sometimes. You find yourself hiding your obsession to avoid hearing the typical ‘it’s so boring’ or ‘I don’t understand it’ responses. Liking cricket feels almost like a taboo, akin to saying you’re into taxidermy or the music of Dido.
Just when it needed it, cricket put on its greatest ever match. The stars were aligned on Sunday. An England team in the World Cup final on home soil, a nation crying out for some sporting success and available to watch on free-to-air television. What a time to play out the most nerve-wracking, topsy-turvy, closest game the sport has ever seen.
It was in early January 2003, just before school started again after Christmas, that I first got into cricket.
I was 10 years old and would get up in the morning to find my dad in the living room watching the Ashes Test from Sydney on TV. On the screen, I could see Michael Vaughan batting for England and can remember thinking ‘this is great’.
Vaughan’s strokeplay, especially his cover drive, were just so pleasing on the eye. I knew next to nothing about the sport at the time. I didn’t know England were 4-0 down in the five match series. I didn’t know the Australian team was one of the best there had ever been. But I was fascinated by this Englishman artfully approaching these little red missiles being fired at him and making several Australians chase after them. I didn’t want to stop watching.
Watching Michael Vaughan bat got me into cricket
I would say I love football and cricket equally. Thankfully, with the end of the football season signalling the start of the cricket season in this country I rarely have to choose between the two. If I had to pick just one, however, it would be cricket.
So much can happen at any moment in a cricket match. Every ball is an event. There are so many ways for the batsman to score runs and so many ways for the bowler to get him out. Football tends to be mostly tedious until the last ten minutes of a game. And cricket is so aesthetically pleasing – it certainly takes the crown of ‘the beautiful game’ for me. Sorry, Pele.
I also love how cricket is so incredibly difficult to be good at. You’ve got three disciplines to tackle and it’s hard to be proficient at any of them. The chances of being good at all three are next to zero. International cricketers seem almost superhuman compared to mere mortals like me. Just look (below) at this catch England’s Ben Stokes took in an Ashes Test in 2015.
Cricket was the new cool in 2005 when England won the Ashes for the first time in 18 years, beating an immensely strong Australia 2-1 in what is unlikely ever to usurped as the best Test series of all time. The game was on the front and back pages of the newspapers and 7.4 million people tuned in to watch the end of the final Test live on Channel 4.
Since then, the England cricket team has only been visible on live television to Sky Sports subscribers. Prohibitively expensive to many and not likely to be stumbled upon by the casual viewer, cricket dropped out of the national consciousness and the numbers of people playing and watching sank. The conclusion of the final Ashes Test in 2009, only on Sky Sports, was watched by less than two million.
These are the reasons why this year’s World Cup has been so important for cricket in the UK. The world’s best players have been competing on our doorsteps for nearly seven weeks. Fan parks have opened the tournament up to thousands of newcomers. And to top it all, England came into it as favourites and have reached the final.
England thrashed Australia in the semi-finals to reach the Cricket World Cup final for the first time since 1992
It’s hard to put into words what England winning the World Cup would do for the game. How often can we say that England are world champions in any sport? With the match against New Zealand at Lord’s being the first time the England team can be seen live on terrestrial television for 14 years – it’s going to be live on Channel 4 – this is a massive opportunity for cricket to engage with the wider public once again.
I’d love for a kid to catch sight of cricket on the TV for the first time on Sunday and be captured by it in the way I was sixteen years ago. For Jonny Bairstow or Joe Root to inspire in the way that Michael Vaughan did. After all, success makes you popular.
The Cricket World Cup final between England and New Zealand at Lord’s will be live on Channel 4 and Sky Sports on Sunday 14th July, with the first ball at 10.30am.
For a mad keen cricket fan like me, 2019 is like a birthday and Christmas present rolled into one. The World Cup is being held in England and Wales, with England the favourites to win it, and in August the Ashes start with England and Australia renewing their famous rivalry.
I have friends who may not quite understand much about cricket and why I’m so excited about this year – so I’ve written this for you.
Hosts England are favourites to win the cricket World Cup
When does the World Cup start?
The World Cup is just one week away. It starts on Thursday 30th May when England play South Africa at The Oval in London. The final is on Sunday 14th July at Lord’s.
How does the World Cup work?
There are ten countries playing in the World Cup. That’s not many compared to other sports. Compare it to the last football World Cup – where 32 teams were involved – or the rugby World Cup later this year, which will feature 20 teams.
Those 10 teams are:
Afghanistan Australia Bangladesh England India New Zealand Pakistan South Africa Sri Lanka West Indies
The teams all play each other once, with the top four going through to the semi-finals. There, 1st place will play 4th place and 2nd will play 3rd. Then, of course, the winners of those matches will play in the final.
There will be one match a day (two on Saturdays) between the start of the tournament on 30th May and the conclusion of the group stage on 6th July.
Where are the matches being played?
Ten grounds will host matches in the World Cup, stretching as far north as County Durham and as far south as Hampshire. They are:
The Riverside (Durham) Headingley (Leeds) Old Trafford (Manchester) Trent Bridge (Nottingham) Edgbaston (Birmingham) Lord’s (London) The Oval (London) County Ground (Bristol) Sophia Gardens (Cardiff) County Ground (Taunton) Rose Bowl (Southampton)
The iconic Lord’s will host the cricket World Cup final on 14th July
How can I follow it?
Every single match of the World Cup is live on Sky Sports, so you’ll need to pay to watch it on TV. Now TV is the best way in my opinion – you can buy one of their devices and buy a Sky Sports month pass for £25. Two of those will see you through the World Cup.
Highlights of every match will be on Channel 4.
If you prefer listening to the radio, commentary will be available on the BBC’s famous Test Match Special on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra.
Why are you so excited about it?
This is the first time England have hosted the cricket World Cup since 1999. Back then, I was a nearly-7-year-old who didn’t know what cricket was. England are also the favourites for it, going into the tournament as the number one ranked One Day International (ODI) team in the world.
Australia won the last cricket World Cup in 2015
It’s going to a close run thing, too – out of the ten teams playing, I reckon seven have a genuine chance of winning it. I think Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will struggle but the other seven will be fighting for the four places in the semi-finals. Even those three I’ve mentioned are capable of causing a few upsets.
I hope you’ve found this guide useful and you might indulge in a bit of cricket over the next eight weeks or so. I’ll be writing about the games you should watch as we go along.
I know I shouldn’t rise to it. I know they are on the wind up. Looking for a reaction. Reeling me in.
But I just can’t help it.
I’m referring to people on Twitter who reply to any – and I mean any – post about women’s sport with the words ‘no one cares’.
A blokey bloke claiming to speak for every man in Britain
It’s incredibly irritating. It’s so fundamentally incorrect, so infuriatingly dismissive and so annoyingly pompous. Who are they to speak for everyone? They might not care themselves, fine, but they don’t speak for me.
Personally, if I don’t care about something I don’t spend my time commenting on tweets about it making it clear to everyone that I am not interested. I like most sports but golf and Formula 1 leave me cold. I am well aware that millions of people love them, though, so I leave them to it. It’s the way these blokes – and it is always blokes – desperately need to tell everyone that they don’t care about women’s sport that gets to me.
Another bloke
It is most often ‘no one cares’. That’s the textbook blokey casually sexist reply. Sometimes it’s a snide comment on the size of the crowds at a women’s sporting event. Sometimes it’s more explicit, with suggestions that the players ‘should be in the kitchen’ or that there would be more interest if the players were in bikinis.
Joking or not, comments like these are wrong. It’s 2019 now. Shouldn’t we have moved on from these tired cliches? Jokes require an element of humour, and there’s nothing funny about them.
Women’s sport is in a fantastic place right now, and getting better all the time. As I write this, the England football team are on the verge of winning the SheBelieves Cup. The England cricket team are world champions, having beaten India in front of a crowd of around 25,000 at Lord’s in 2017. And who could forget the Great Britain hockey team’s thrilling gold medal at Rio 2016?
England’s women’s cricket team won the World Cup in 2017
When England’s women played the Netherlands in the semi-finals of Euro 2017, 4 million people watched it on Channel 4. This was the biggest UK audience for a women’s football match to date, and the match got double the average audience of that day’s episode of Celebrity Big Brother. This is solid proof that ‘no one cares’ is plainly wrong.
This is not about wanting to fight a battle on behalf of women. This just really irritates me. When I’ve engaged with the people who make these comments, I’m usually met with denial. Nobody cares mate. These facts you’re telling me are made up. Sometimes I’m told that I’m in the ‘PC (politically correct) brigade’. I’m not. It’s not PC to not hate, or be frightened of, women. Because that’s what these men are. They will deny it until they are red in the face but they’re are afraid that these women playing sport threatens their masculinity.
Once, I was given the bizarre response that I am only defending women’s sport because I think it would make women want to sleep with me. I mean, really? How shallow can you be? That one wasn’t even worthy of a reaction.
This bloke can only imagine caring about women’s sport if it was in the pursuit of sex
I felt like writing this because I am sick of calling out the ‘no one cares’ blokes on Twitter. I thought I’d write very clearly why they are wrong and link them to it in future.
Women’s sport is on the rise and that should be celebrated. It doesn’t need some bloke on social media dismissing it. Let’s not let them.
LEE PAYNE 