Initiative planned to reverse high school drop-off

Paul Read says the Cricket World Cup has already helped to raise awareness of the sport but the real test will be how many students sign up for it next year.

Interest fired by the Cricket World Cup, as well as a fresh initiative to make games shorter and more fun, are hoped to boost falling levels of participation in the sport.

Statistics released by the New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council, measuring students with meaningful participation in sports, showed 414 secondary school students took part in cricket in 2014 in the Bay of Plenty. This was a drop from the 460 who participated in 2013.

Bay of Plenty Cricket Association chief executive Paul Read said the Cricket World Cup had already helped to raise awareness of the sport.

"One-off events don't usually have an immediate impact. We do get a lot of interest but it is more how many people will sign up next year," he said.

"A lot of cricket started back in October and teams were already formed before the World Cup started. However, it has certainly helped raise the profile of the sport and we are doing a lot to try and build cricket around that to boost participation.

"The real test will be how many students we get signing up next year."

New Zealand Cricket is currently developing a new version of the game to rejuvenate the sport at community level.

Amateur cricket general manager Edward Shuttleworth said interest had surged since the start of the World Cup.

"We have seen a big uptake in primary schools but the challenge is making sure there is a transition available for the kids so when they move through to secondary school and college, they can keep up the sport."

This interest, coupled with the yet-to-be-named new initiative to revive the game, might save cricket in secondary schools, Mr Shuttleworth said.

"We are launching a new programme for males and females, right through junior and secondary school for the 2015/16 cricket season that has traditional elements to it but is modified to meet the gaps and fix the issues that have been raised," he said.

"The modified format will be more active, fun, shorter, available mid-week and it will involve all."

It was hoped the new format, which will be introduced later this year, would address issues identified by teens as the reasons they were not interested in the sport, Mr Shuttleworth said.

"These issues were: time it took to play a game of cricket; the level of fun and energy in the game and a person's involvement during a day of cricket; cost; and that cricket wasn't a suitable format that met people's needs.

"This new programme will address these and, hopefully, the interest we have had from the World Cup will help."

The data also showed secondary school cricket participation was dominated by males with 336 involved and only 78 female involved in the sport in 2014 - another issue the new programme had been designed to address.

Mr Read said secondary school was a traditionally tough area to keep kids involved in cricket.

"The story is that we have really good growth levels in primary schools and junior cricket, right across the Bay. Within schools, right through to intermediate, cricket is well established and well participated," he said.

"But at the secondary school levels where our biggest drop-off is, the programmes aren't as robust as intermediate and primary school cricket programmes and that is mainly because there is a lot more competition for attention. There are a lot more sports that kids can get involved with, therefore it is harder to get high participation rates.

"While we do fairly well and we have some great successes, some schools struggle sometimes to get teams together and sometimes it is just because there aren't as many players or there are limited people available to help coach."

A declining participation rate in cricket among secondary school students was consistent nationally, the data showed. There were 9937 secondary school students who participated in outdoor cricket last year - a 5 per cent drop from 10,439 in 2013 and a 16 per cent drop since 2011.