Some more provisional figures that may provide thoughts for the upcoming Cricket Leinster Club Day [1st October].
The percentage breakdown of players by age [there are a small number of registrations where the date of birth is clearly wrong e.g. put in current date instead] is set out in the pye chart below. The shorthand headings correspond to age groups - Youth U18, College 18 - 22, Travel 23 - 27, Work 28 - 32, Family 33 - 42, Mature 43 - 52, Senior = > 53. The overall figure is just over 2000 players who took part in at least one competitive match in 2016.
The overall numbers playing hold steady between the ages of 18 and 27 and even increase slightly in the late 20s / early 30s [though the average number of matches played drops from 12 per season to 10]. The numbers, as one might expect, then drops off from the mid 30s.
What is significant, but does not show up in the gross figures, is a change in the profile of cricketers by origin. If one uses the term domestic to refer to those players who came up through the ranks and learnt their cricket in Ireland - there is a sharp drop in the proportion of home-grown players from the mid 20s. Whereas the number of domestic cricketers exceed those who learnt their cricket outside of Ireland in the 18 - 22 age group the position reverses over the next ten years and only comes back to par for those who are 40 plus.
The fall in the number of domestic cricketers is quite dramatic during the 20s and 30s. The total number of domestic players between 23 - 42 still playing competitive club cricket is less than 300 across all leagues/cups. The figure for non-domestic cricketers in this age group is over 800.
This, it hardly needs pointing out, raises questions about the ability of the sport to interest a domestic audience, the focus of the effort to keep young players in the game, the risks to the sport were there to be any change in immigration rules or global employment patterns, the challenge involved in engaging a relatively mobile playing community in helping to administer the sport and much else besides. What is clear is that the development and growth of the sport in Leinster in recent years has been primarily down to the increased numbers of players who have come to Ireland having learnt their cricket abroad. This, however, is something that deserves a separate article.