SMH destroys CA and...literally nobody cares

[Dan]

In news that comes to the surprise of literally nobody even remotely involved in club cricket admin, turns out that Cricket Australia has been lying through their teeth about playing numbers. Knox and the SMH have come out with some absolutely brutal reporting on it. Beautiful.

Cape Town, paywalling the ODIs because they had to get over the billion mark, the hilarious 'move on your volunteers' **** up - and now being caught out on fake participation numbers - not a good year for Cricket Aus. Like, they basically come across as comically evil at this point. I'd almost prefer David White over the current lot.

Anyway, minimising commentary that will come back to bite me and channelling my inner Richard wall-of-multiquote, here's some not-so-selective quotes from the network of different pieces:

The peak cricketing body's Australian Cricket Census, published on June 30, claimed that one in 15 Australians played cricket in 2018-19. That includes nearly a million children playing in sport classes at school and almost 700,000 registered club cricketers.

The report stated there were 684,356 registered club cricketers, drawn from Cricket Australia's own MyCricket database. However, The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age can reveal thousands of players have multiple entries. Manually counting unique cricketers in that same database, our analysis found just 247,060 players, less than half what is claimed.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricke...playing-numbers-revealed-20190720-p5292s.html

Another stakeholder who has had intimate dealings with Cricket Australia said: "In our negotiations, CA used these figures. They knew the number was bull****, we knew it was bull****, everyone knows it’s bull****. But they can’t say the real number because all the other sports do the same, and it’s produced for their commercial and government relationships which might be hurt if those partners knew the real number. Nobody inside cricket wants to talk it down, because the game might then lose funding.’

However, Sun-Herald inquiries have shown that all sports do not do the same.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricke...playing-numbers-revealed-20190720-p5292s.html

The problem is, the participation rate is a fiction. Since last year, Cricket Australia has moved its counting in-house; it was previously calculated by the Victorian research firm Street Ryan, which devised the ‘Australian Cricket Census’ in 2002. Through that process, a database called MyCricket was set up, in which cricketers who registered either online or manually received a unique ID number.

Moving the counting in-house at a problematic time has been like a student taking over the job of marking their own homework.

Cricket Australia has always known what people at the grassroots know: that the number of people playing cricket was considerably lower than the participation rate.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricke...tralia-s-double-counting-20190720-p52923.html

A recent letter from a regional cricket association chairman to Mr Spyrdz drew attention to recruitment problems and rising costs for cricketers and families. Cricket NSW had just appointed 34 new community positions which the chairman did not think addressed the problem. Millions of sponsor dollars from Woolworths, McDonald’s and Commonwealth Bank for grassroots cricket, he wrote, were not reaching the intended target.

Mr Spyrdz replied that Cricket NSW’s data showed participation increasing, in contradiction of administrators’ experience, and suggested the problem was theirs. "If you are having communication issues, it appears that that may sit with you and those you are communicating with as there are many within your own cricket community … who appear to be across what is happening. I respectfully disagree we show no respect to volunteers we work with in the community."
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricke...affecting-the-grassroots-20190720-p5293d.html

The over-counting by Cricket Australia has gone on for many years, and it could have obtained a number of unique participants if it had the will. The organisation says it is working towards improving its data.

The PR-driven approach has so far been to point to growth among female, all-abilities and minorities playing the game, but the numbers coming in from new demographics are not compensating for the numbers leaking out.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricke...affecting-the-grassroots-20190720-p5293d.html

But yeah, released over the weekend with about sixteen thousand derivative pieces (there goes my monthly un-paywall reading), and has quickly been buried by some hipster bloke who apparently swims fast who, quite impressively, has managed to criticise a Chinese guy without it being completely watson-y.

 

[morgieb]

All cricket boards have done something terrible for the health of the sport over the last 10-15 years. I almost think the BCCI have the interests of the game at heart the most out of the boards that aren't massively corrupt or heavily politicised.

 

[Burgey]

Pack of arseholes. Resign.

 

[Spark]

All cricket boards have done something terrible for the health of the sport over the last 10-15 years. I almost think the BCCI have the interests of the game at heart the most out of the boards that aren't massively corrupt or heavily politicised.

Honestly the BCCI are arrogant and corrupt as **** but at least they don't seem to be borderline asset stripping the game in India, which is a charge that could arguably be levelled at other cricket boards, some of them quite prominent. You could definitely make a case that CA and the ECB both fall into that category.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

Saw this article this morning just by chance and thought, 'Wow! Who knew?'

In news that comes to the surprise of literally nobody even remotely involved in club cricket admin

Fixed.

 

[cnerd123]

All cricket boards have done something terrible for the health of the sport over the last 10-15 years. I almost think the BCCI have the interests of the game at heart the most out of the boards that aren't massively corrupt or heavily politicised.

Some Associate Cricket boards are good. Wouldn't lump them in with CA.

 

[GotSpin]

The problem with Cricket Australia is that it's an organisation that should represent the public interest but operates in complete privacy with literally no one holding it properly accountable. Hard to really jump and down and make a fuss when there's just another **** up. It's like complaining about the behaviour of league players right now

In regards to the numbers, does that mean if you don't have a MyCricket account you're not counted towards participation?

 

[GotSpin]

Adding on again, fudging numbers to get more funding doesn’t seem that bad...unless internally they’re acting this way too (big chance)

 

[cnerd123]

Adding on again, fudging numbers to get more funding doesn’t seem that bad...unless internally they’re acting this way too (big chance)

I think it could be devastating to their future funding if they get caught for lying on applications though. Seems like a very risky strategy for short term gain. Only works as long as no one looks too closely.

But then again idk how Aus government works for this sort of thing

 

[Spikey]

why would the wider australian public care

 

[quincywagstaff]

why would the wider australian public care

Yeah, I know Oz media and 'insiders' drool over participation numbers that sports dish up but I honestly don't think the public cares as it's hard to get a proper context. They probably realise it's all PR nonsense anyway.

 

[TheJediBrah]

The problem with Cricket Australia is that it's an organisation that should represent the public interest but operates in complete privacy with literally no one holding it properly accountable. Hard to really jump and down and make a fuss when there's just another **** up. It's like complaining about the behaviour of league players right now

In regards to the numbers, does that mean if you don't have a MyCricket account you're not counted towards participation?

I feel like the sponsors who are one of the "victims" here should take the responsibility upon themselves to ensure their investment was a good one. If you a sponsor a "kid who is marking their own homework" as it was put then it's your own fault if he's giving you false information that you're not checking/able to check.