Cricket Australia’s unwieldy count of its participation rate reveals a threat to our success in the game. Nearly 700,000 instances of participation by registered players is not nearly 700,000 players: It is 247,000 players, a sizeable number of which play in multiple teams, The Sun-Herald's investigation found. Loading It is a participation crisis. And clubs have been telling those closer to the top of the tree for some time. Prominent among the individual players counted in several teams – as many as 10 times in some cases – is a group of talented and/or passionate children aged roughly 16. They are the ones savouring their last summer in Saturday morning junior cricket, dashing off to plug holes in their club’s senior team, or turning out for school and backing up for representative or turf cricket on a Sunday. If they’re good enough, they find themselves in city, state and national teams. They’re the same ones that play winter cricket, raging against the dying of the light. The HSC awaits, then university and casual weekend work. These talented juniors are the strong roots of the game – those whose passion for the game does not relent when the realisation arrives they are not the next Glenn McGrath or Steve Waugh; as well as the few who make early strides to those lofty heights.

Loading But, as they become adults, many reassess. A number stop playing the summer prior to their HSC. Many never find their way back. Older adults drop away as they have children of their own. Many children never start – their parents frightened off by the time commitment: it’s not the quickest sport their child can play. Busier lives, busy weekend traffic, and the casualisation of the workforce are all factors. There is much cricket does well. Its elevation of elite women’s pay to levels which cricketers might be earning in another full-time profession and the women’s game’s increasing prominence are to be applauded. The strength at the top of this tree is mighty: witness Ellyse Perry’s recent 7-22 in an Ashes one-dayer against England, and a century on day two of the Test. It is not for a lack of energetic club volunteers who man the booths at shopping malls, put on try-cricket days, share Facebook and Instagram posts, send emails, and engage local schools.

It is not for a lack of immigrants from cricket-playing countries – in 2018, England and India were two of the three nations from which most immigrants had arrived. Indeed, India has been Australia’s biggest source of new migrants since 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports. Shorter competitions – more quick, T20 summer options for HSC and university-aged players – and money for associations and clubs to promote the game and engage the parents making decisions for their young children might be a start. Clubs have been begging the state and national bodies to address this crisis, and they have been ignored. Cricket Australia and the state bodies must listen if the top of the tree is to stay as strong as the likes of Mitchell Starc and Ellyse Perry have shown it to be.