On Sunday I went to Old Trafford for the T20 Blast match between Lancashire and Durham.
A week on from England becoming world champions (I will never get tired of saying that), cricket is enjoying a boost in popularity. The Cricket Paper reports that counties have noticed an increase in ticket sales for the T20 Blast as people who maybe haven’t been to a match for a while, or indeed at all, seize the opportunity to see the game in the flesh.
This includes – crucially – children. Most of the crowd in Manchester, which was huge for a domestic game, were families with youngsters. I’m not a big fan of kids – they are noisy, carry illnesses and can’t sit still for five minutes – but they are vitally important for the future of cricket. They all seemed to be having a great time, and that’s key. Children need to think of going to a cricket match as a normal thing to do, and something to look forward to. They will be the next generation of players and fans and will hopefully pass on their enthusiam to their own kids in years to come.
I had been to Old Trafford before, for the Test match between England and India in 2014, and enjoyed the laid back atmosphere and friendly stewards. This makes it the ideal venue for 20 over cricket compared to, say, Lord’s which I find stuffy and inaccessible. The emphasis was on fun, with the Lancashire mascot Lanky the Giraffe dancing on the boundary before play began.
As for the match itself, T20 is perfect for those who are unfamiliar with cricket. It’s short and sharp and you get to see plenty of big sixes and wickets. Lancashire batted first in their opening home game of the tournament and amassed 189-3, opener Steven Croft top scoring with an unbeaten 65 from 43 balls. The star of the show, however, was Australia international Glenn Maxwell. The world number one ranked all rounder in T20s hit 58 off 33 balls with four sixes. Each boundary was received with loud cheers and a burst of pop music. It was interesting to see how partisan the crowd was, a lot of the people there seemed to feel for the Lancashire cricket team the same way I feel for Norwich City Football Club. They weren’t just there to enjoy a day out, they were there to see the home side win.
Durham never looked like chasing the 190 they needed to win and were all out for 117 within 17 overs. Scott Steel had scored 58 from 46 balls but the next highest score for the visitors was 12. Lancashire won by 72 runs and a couple of run outs were enough to secure Maxwell the player of the match award.
Maxwell played for Australia in the World Cup (having won it in 2015) so he was the main attraction for the kids. They gathered round to watch him be interviewed at the end of the match, taking photos and hoping for an autograph. The occasion was slightly lacking in big names. Both sides were packed with solid professionals and the standard was high but aside from Maxwell only D’Arcy Short, another Australian, would have been recognisable to most of the crowd. Short was not involved in the World Cup but has played for his country, as well as in T20 leagues around the world. Also on show was Keaton Jennings, who has scored a Test century for England but has otherwise struggled at the highest level and has been dropped from the most recent squad.
The majority of the England players involved in the victorious World Cup campaign were getting a well deserved rest, with the seven week long tournament soon to be followed by a Test match against Ireland and the five match Ashes series against Australia. Part of me, though, wished that there could have been a way to get those stars involved in the first couple of rounds of T20 Blast fixtures to really capitalise on the current popularity of cricket in this country.
Had those England players been available, the Lancashire side would have featured Jos Buttler and Durham’s side would have boasted Ben Stokes, who was player of the match in the World Cup final. Mark Wood is also a Durham player but is injured and out until September. It would have been fantastic for the crowd to have been able to see their new heroes, but I understand that with a packed schedule it was almost impossible. Wood and Stokes paraded the World Cup trophy around Durham’s home ground the Riverside on Saturday, as captain Eoin Morgan had done around Lord’s, where he plays for Middlesex, on Thursday. I had a faint hope that Buttler might have done the same around Old Trafford on Sunday but it was not to be.
The T20 Blast is a fantastic product. Now in its 17th season, the crowds are big, the standard is high and overseas stars want to play in it. If some of it was on Free-to-air television instead of it all being on Sky Sports I have no doubt it would be a massive annual summer event.
Walking away from Old Trafford, I couldn’t for the life of me fathom why the authorities have felt the need to invent an entirely new format of the game to try to attract new fans. Next year will see the launch of The Hundred, a convoluted version of the game with the simplest part being one hundred balls per innings. Eight completely new teams, based around the major cities and with awful names like London Spirt and Leeds Superchargers, will take part. These teams will have to start from scratch, with none of the existing loyal following of the county sides. The only thing going for it is that some of it will be on BBC TV. It makes absolutely no sense and from what I can see it is doomed to fail.
My visit to Manchester on Sunday was conclusive proof for me that the England and Wales Cricket Board already has everything it needs to make cricket the undisputed second sport of the nation again. I can only hope that their seemingly muddled thinking doesn’t mean they miss the opportunity.
LEE PAYNE 