Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s sports presenter Paul Kennedy, a former Footie player and current journalist, was asked on the Grade Cricketer vlog, if he worried about the “influence of India’s vision of cricket in Australia.” He instead suggested that “Indian or South Asian heritage cricketers might actually be the answer for future of cricket in Australia.
Quoting some eye-popping figures, Kennedy explained that South Asian heritage cricketers were pivotal to increase participation figures in Australian cricket. “If you look at all sports, which I do, participation levels is a big thing. You need people playing a game if you want to keep operating as a sport, particularly big sport like cricket. If you look at migration to Australia, India is a huge part of Australia life now. And what do they do? They play cricket. The stats are that at the U12 level it’s up near 40% of the kids are from South Asian heritage. We went to Truganina which is west of Melbourne. In that area along eight years ago, they had 160 teams., now they have 420 teams. And some sports haven’t got the diversity to to have that future safeguard of just full participation in growing a game. So it’s like a gift for cricket,’ he told the Grade Cricketer.
Earlier last month, writing on abc.net.au, Kennedy had stressed that the current participation boom was unlike any other trend in Australian sport: “Five years ago, 10 per cent of cricket players registered at all levels in Australia had South Asian heritage; Cricket Australia Chief of Cricket James Allsop says that figure is 20 per cent and rising.”
The writeup noted other growing numbers. “Registrations for ‘Cricket Blast’, a backyard cricket-style introductory program for kids under 10, saw children of parents from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan go up by 26 per cent for boys and 29 per cent for girls over the past year. Representative programs run by local, state, and national organisations have noted 17 per cent of their players are now of South Asian heritage. In the Under 12 age group that number is an amazing 40 per cent in boys and 25 per cent in girls.”
However a sobering stat presented itself in Kennedy’s findings, as he said the revolution is yet to reach the professional ranks, where contracted state players from South Asian families make up fewer than five per cent of 166 elite men and 122 women and at the highest level, only Usman Khawaja and Alana King had national contracts.
A Cricket Australia multicultural plan aimed to double the number of South Asian players at state level by 2027. Alsopp was quoted as saying by ABC.net.au, “We’re making inroads. But we’ve still got a lot of work to do and we’re not shy about that. We want to make sure that all clubs are accommodating for people from all cultural backgrounds, which has been a big focus for the last five years.”
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