Cricket In Australia
Cricket is one of the most popular sports in Australia, at international, domestic and local levels. Unlike most other sports played in Australia, cricket generates equal interest in all states of the nation. In 2007, a survey by Sweeney Sports found that 52% of the Australian public have an interest in cricket. The peak administrative body for both professional and amateur cricket in Australia is Cricket Australia. Cricket is often known as Australia's national sport due to its equal popularity in all parts of the country.
A census conducted on behalf of Cricket Australia found that in the 2010-11 season there were 850,155 professional participants in Australian cricket programs and competitions, putting Australia’s national game ahead of all the football codes and other popular sports such as golf and bowls.
Separately, official audience data shows that 93.6% of Australians watched at least some cricket on TV in 2010-11 calendar year, the highest penetration of any sport in Australia.
Read more about Cricket In Australia: International Cricket, Domestic Cricket, International Grounds, Cricket in Australian Culture
Famous quotes containing the words cricket and/or australia:
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
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—Alex Atkinson, British humor writer. repr. In Present Laughter, ed. Alan Coren (1982)