Cricket Witness No 6 - His Captain's Hand on His Shoulder Smote

149 The Runs Don’t Count series of tapering one-day formats from 65 overs aside to 20 overs, each time saying a genuine cricket match could not be played in lower than 65, 60, 50, 40, 20 overs, each time arguing that limited overs success would build a conduit for first-class watchers. The number of overs has been lowered as each previous formula gradually lost novelty appeal, while first-class county crowds dwindled further. The white ball tail has wagged the red ball dog. The counties would be relieved to host the 500,000 who rolled up during the 1960s. In 2015 300,000, exclusive of members, passed through the turnstiles for the County Championship games. Daily figures were as low as 120 and seldom as high as 1000, although membership, at about 130,000 in sum, is still robust. The counties play first-class cricket in something of a tomb-like atmosphere. Even including the healthier receipts of white- ball cricket and the members’ subscriptions, a back-of-the- envelope calculation suggests the counties, on average, derive less than 20% of their income from customers. It is a disastrous business model, as the financial condition of some counties confirms. As well as the relative absence of schools and cricket from children’s mainstream reading, cricket itself plays a smaller part in everyday discourse. The press does not cover first-class county cricket with the assiduity of old and, in particular, the reportage of school cricket, once a proud feature of a couple of the broadsheets, is negligible. Cricket commentary, press, television or the ever more prominent social media, is now more the province, as with most other sports, of former players rather than journalists. The ex- players have fine records and often shrewd technical acumen but for those reared on Neville Cardus in print and John Arlott on air, the magic is lost and, with that loss, the sense of cricket as a valued art-form and worthy cult. Cricket takes its now ordinary place alongside the other sports, with football way out in front these days as the leading protagonist. Like other sports, it is likely that – think Ben Stokes or Cameron Bancroft et.al – the chief media interest will be evoked when the subject-matter is material for the front rather than the back pages. Recently