Cricket World Cup: Cup saviour of grassroots game

A visit from Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum and ANZ's Field Your Dream campaign have helped boost grassroots cricket. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Playing numbers on rise from Auckland to Southland as world tourney proves boom for cricket at lower levels

New Zealand cricket is already benefiting from the World Cup with reports of a resurgence in playing numbers approaching a boom at junior level.

Nowhere has that been more noticeable than Southland where financial pressures and dwindling numbers in grassroots cricket were threatening the sport's survival. Meanwhile, in Auckland, 128 new teams have joined the new schools-based Cricket Blitz programme this summer.

NZ Cricket's general manager of amateur cricket, Ed Shuttleworth, said recently interest had already surged since the start of the World Cup.

"We have particularly 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." NZ Cricket is looking at new initiatives to boost the game in secondary schools.

Southland is one barometer illustrating the change - with the World Cup, a visit from Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum and ANZ's Field Your Dream campaign all helping to boost grassroots cricket there.

Development officer for the Southland Cricket Association, Sam Ward, said playing numbers at primary school level have doubled this season. At the weekly Kiwi 8 tournament in Invercargill, 12 teams competed last season; 20 this summer. In Gore, no teams played last season; this time there are four.

Long-time club cricketer and juniors coach at the Winton Cricket Club, Malcolm Walker, said Southland was facing an uncertain future before the World Cup and ANZ intervened. The Southland Cricket Association had experienced fading interest, numbers and finances; it still had no general manager and no groundsman and recently lost hosting of an Otago-Wellington first-class match to Queenstown. Sport Southland had been asked to conduct a review of the ailing association.

"Things looked pretty grim, especially before Christmas when the weather just rained things off, Saturday after Saturday. The kids were despondent; they were so keen to play but couldn't - and that sort of thing usually has a bad effect; they just go and do other things."

But a visit from McCullum late last year and from the ANZ Dream Big bus, bearing containers of cricket gear (and in one case, a bowling machine) for clubs and a school in Gore, Winton, Invercargill and Te Anau helped revive cricket in the deep south, he said.

"McCullum was fantastic," said Walker.

"He was so relaxed, positive and helpful - all the kids went home from the training sessions he held feeling like superheroes. I think that has had a lot to do with the rise in numbers.

"Our club numbers here in Winton have doubled since the beginning of the season - and you see and hear kids trying to be like McCullum or Trent Boult or Tim Southee and changing their batting style to resemble their heroes."

Walker also said the gear given to the Southland towns was "the lifeblood" of grassroots cricket and was helping to fuel the revitalisation - echoed by 15-year-old schoolboy cricketer Jack Mockford, of Gore's St Peter's College, which also benefited from ANZ gear.

"We didn't have much gear and it wasn't even the right size. Our pads were so big some players couldn't even run properly between wickets," he said.

"Having this gear now means players can improve their technique. It's going to energise cricket at St Peter's."

Adrian Dale, club cricket development manager at Auckland Cricket, also put the success of Cricket Blitz, launched this year, down to the World Cup: "It has given the game a good shot in the arm. I can genuinely say that without it, we wouldn't have 128 brand new teams in our competition."

Director of Cricket at Northern Districts Cricket Association, Pat Malcon said: "In the last two weeks I've had calls from nine parents in the region who I don't know, who have told me identical stories about their kids obsessively watching the World Cup on TV and who are mad keen to start playing.

"Usually at this time of the year the kids are kicking footballs around but not this year - cricket is still dominating. That is a sign of the power of this World Cup."

• This story is part of a content partnership with ANZ.

For more coverage of the Cricket World Cup from nzherald.co.nz and NZME check out #CricketFever.