CA: We did not inflate figures

CRICKET Australia chief executive Kevin Roberts has used a letter sent to key stakeholders to reject claims that the organisation has grossly exaggerated the number of participants playing the game.

An investigation by Nine cast doubt over whether CA’s claim that 1.65 million Australians play cricket was accurate, given its discovery that thousands of players logged on the official MyCricket database have multiple entries.

Cricket Australia has used a figure of 1.65 million participants as a badge of honour to promote to sponsors, government bodies and broadcasters alike, that cricket is the No.1 sport in the country. This has angered local clubs who feel it paints an inaccurate picture of battles at the grassroots.

The Australian Cricket Census published by CA on June 30 reported that there were 684,356 registered club cricketers on MyCricket.

However, Nine’s investigation claims that the real figure is 247,060 players and indicated that cricket is more like Australia’s No.7-ranked sport.

Roberts has not spoken publicly to answer questions since the Nine investigation, but he has sent a letter to Cricket Australia’s key stakeholders including major sponsors, broadcasters, government bodies and community cricket groups to provide a lengthy explanation.

The letter concedes a disconnect between administrators and community cricket must be addressed, but denies that Cricket Australia has inflated its playing numbers.

Roberts refutes conclusions drawn by the Nine investigation for presenting “a distorted view of cricket’s health”, adamant that cricket participation continues to grow.

“It’s important to note that MyCricket only houses the competitions of around half of the teams from which registered players are calculated. By only counting individuals listed on MyCricket, SMH [Nine] ignored those competitions not administered on that platform,” reads the letter.

“These include school competitions, indoor cricket competitions, other competitions outside traditional club structures and kids in the Woolworths Cricket Blast program.

“All of these are included in the total registered player number of 684,356 that we reported. For all competitions within and beyond the MyCricket database, we calculate registered players by multiplying the actual number of teams by an estimated number of players per team over a season.”