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Sydney. Australia’s unconquered march through its home international season raised more questions than provided answers for cricket amid dwindling crowds and television ratings.

Ricky Ponting’s team swept aside lowly-ranked Pakistan and the West Indies in test, one-day and Twenty20 matches for Australia’s first unbeaten domestic summer since the Steve Waugh-led side of 2000-01.

The lopsided contests left plenty of fans feeling empty, many staying away from matches and tuning out of televised cricket.

While Ponting, rehabilitating his captaincy after leading a second failed Ashes series in England last year, was proud of Australia’s unbeaten achievement and upbeat about the unearthing of fresh young talent, there is an unease about the state of the game.

Fans stayed away from the ODIs in droves, preferring the pyrotechnics of Twenty20 cricket. The massive Melbourne Cricket Ground took on a funereal feel when just 15,538 fans watched the fifth ODI against the West Indies, just 15 percent of its 100,000 capacity.

Adelaide Oval’s smallest-ever crowd of 8,378 for an international one-dayer watched the second match of the series, and Brisbane’s Gabba was half-full with 20,088 fans for the fourth game.

Worrying still was the fall-off in television ratings for cricket, with the audience of long-term broadcaster Nine Network plummeting 40 percent for the ODIs on the previous year’s figures.

Media analyst Steve Allen of Fusion Strategy said cricket television ratings were down across the board, with tests the most affected and the game suffering something of a “disconnect” with the public.

“The result was a bit of a shocker,” he said. “They were off 40 percent. That’s a big drop, about the most severe we’ve seen.”

Nine Network chief executive David Gyngell said he was prepared to wait until the tour later this year of traditional rival England to gauge the actual health of the Australian game.

“We have a very dominant Australian side, which is good news against weak opposition this year, but we won’t really get an understanding until we see the Ashes summer,” he said.

Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland saw nothing to be alarmed about.

“Australian cricket operates in four-year cycles, with some ups and downs depending on who we are playing and when,” he said.

“The trend line for public interest, as measured by attendance, TV and radio ratings and research, has being going up consistently for many years. The strong Australian program for the next few years, starting with the Ashes next summer, will see this continue.”

Despite the apparent loss of public appetite for the ODIs and misgivings from Ponting, Cricket Australia has scheduled seven 50-over games for England’s tour.

“I’ve said for quite a while now that those seven-match series are pretty hard to be a part of, but you understand the reasons behind it,” Ponting said.

“One-day cricket brings in a lot of money to the game … but it’s just important for one-day cricket’s sake that you don’t get to a stage where you are just playing meaningless games.”

While ODIs and tests have tailed off, Twenty20 has attracted a large and, in most instances, younger audience to their games in line with overseas events.

The Boxing Day test at the MCG draws traditionally the biggest crowd on Australia’s cricketing calendar. This season, though, the opening day of the first test against Pakistan attracted just 59,206 fans.

Just over a month later, the Twenty20 game between the same two teams at the same arena drew 60,054, the biggest crowd of the season.



Agence France-Presse