A game in which the local growth industry is in administration

THIS season’s English County Championship will end in a blaze of glory this week regardless of who wins it.

Middlesex, nine points ahead of Yorkshire, and Somerset – just a point further back – all have a great chance of achieving the honour with the former two clashing in their last fixture at Lord’s, while Somerset attempt to dismantle already relegated Nottinghamshire at Taunton.

Why should this be of interest to South African readers? Because it shows that firstclass cricket can still hog the headlines, that, in some parts of the planet it still means something. Would we be on tenterhooks if, say, the Dolphins were playing the Cobras in a winner-takes-all climax to our own first-class domestic season? Would a few thousand people congregate at Newlands or Kingsmead to witness the breathtaking conclusion to a topsy-turvy season? Don’t hold your breath. In England, by contrast, interest is at such a pitch that the four-day match at Lord’s is being televised. And one would hope that plenty of folk will turn up at Lord’s and Taunton to watch their teams.

Some neutrals will hope that Somerset win a championship for the first time, others will be cheering Yorkshire on to achieve the first hat-trick of titles in 48 years and bring the Jason Gillespie era to a glowing conclusion. I will be backing Middlesex because of family considerations.

But whatever the choice, it’s unlikely that there will be much of the “who-cares?” attitude that would be much more prevalent in South Africa.

When I first started reporting cricket in the 1995/6 season, this was a typical 12 for the Natal team: Malcolm Marshall (capt), Andrew Hudson, Doug Watson, Rudi Steyn, Neil Johnson, Mark Bruyns (w/k), Errol Stewart, Jonty Rhodes, Derek Crookes, Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock, Ross Veenstra.

You would have thought that bunch would have attracted a few hundred souls to Kingsmead, at least at the weekend. Sadly, that was rarely the case. Week after week, particularly on Thursdays and Fridays, a few local journalists had the ground to themselves as they watched the stars at play.

Since then, nothing has changed. In fact, it’s got worse. The occasional sprinkling of spectators has been downgraded to an occasional handful, mainly interested parents. You’d get plenty more at a Hilton-Michaelhouse, or Glenwood-Maritzburg College match.

We’ve asked ourselves for years what remedies are available. None has come to hand. Even T20 and one-day cricket struggles to attract spectators. One of the solutions that briefly raised hope was free entry for first-class cricket. It made no difference. If people don’t want a product, they won’t have it at any price.

Even in England, cricket is struggling. The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian used to have journalists covering all the county games. Look at their paperthin coverage now.

And they’re getting rid of the top cricket writers as well. In the last couple of years Mike Selvey (The Guardian), Derek Pringle (The Telegraph) and Stephen Brenkley (The Independent) have all been forced out, to be replaced by younger men on lower salaries.

Here in South Africa there may only be a dozen specialist cricket writers in the country. In the present climate, how long will they last?

And there aren’t too many cricketers to write about any more. Currently, there are six franchise teams. That translates into 66 players each weekend, or, as CSA would have it, into a minimum of 36 players of colour (including 18 black Africans), and a maximum of 30 whites.

Who cares? Well, in a sport where the only growth industry is administrators, perhaps we need to start caring pretty quick.