How many people play cricket, by each body's own count.

Worldwide: the ICC's 2018 research

On 27 June 2018 the ICC published the results of its first global market research, carried out for it by Nielsen Sports between November 2017 and January 2018, with more than 19,000 interviews. The ICC's claims from that release:

• Fans. More than one billion cricket fans aged 16 to 69. The average fan was 34, and fans were 61% male and 39% female.
• Players. More than 300 million active participants aged 16 and over, from occasional social players to elite cricketers. The ICC said it expected the figure to be much higher if under-16s were counted.
• Formats. Interest was about 92% for T20 internationals, 88% for ODIs and close to 70% for Tests; two-thirds of fans followed all three formats.
• Women's cricket and the Olympics. 68% of fans were interested in women's cricket, and 87% wanted T20 cricket at the Olympic Games.

This is the most recent global figure from the ICC that our research found. It dates from 2018 and was market research based on interviews, not a count of registered players.

Worldwide: ICC membership

Membership is another measure of the game's reach, again in the ICC's own figures:

A press report puts the 2026 split at 12 Full Members and 99 Associates; the ICC's release gives only the total. Whether the 111 includes the suspended USA Cricket and Cricket Canada is not stated. See the ICC for the details.

Australia: Cricket Australia's census

Cricket Australia publishes a census of registered participants. Its release of 22 August 2023, for the 2022-23 season, claimed:

• 627,693 registered participants in entry-level programmes, clubs and other competitions, up 5% from 598,931;
• 50,377 women and girls in senior and junior clubs and Woolworths Cricket Blast, up 26%;
• 129,000 children aged 5 to 12, up 11%;
• participation gradually returning toward the pre-COVID peak of about 710,000 in 2019-20.

Woolworths Cricket Blast registrations

Cricket Australia said on 4 February 2024 that 66,186 children had registered for Woolworths Cricket Blast that season, against 64,898 for the whole of the previous season, with girls' registrations at 17,842 against 17,814. These are registrations, not attendance.

Cricket Australia's own figures for 2022-23 do not agree. The August 2023 census gives 69,879 for Woolworths Cricket Blast in 2022-23, while the February 2024 story gives a full-season total of 64,898 for the previous season. Neither release explains the difference in counting.

South Asian participation

A press report (Times of Oman) says Cricket Australia counted 103,232 registered participants from South Asian backgrounds in 2024-25, passing a target of 100,000 that had been set for 2027. We did not open Cricket Australia's own release, so this figure is unconfirmed. Cricket Australia's 2024-25 census release was not found.

England and Wales: the ECB

The ECB said on 20 August 2021 that about 101,000 children, about 27,000 of them girls, took part in its All Stars and Dynamos programmes in 2021. When it announced Dynamos, the ECB had said on 27 February 2020 that it could bring up to 35,000 additional children into the game in 2020; that was a projection, not a count. No later ECB participation figures were found in our research.

South Africa

A KFC Africa partnership release, seen only as an undated search summary, described KFC Mini-Cricket as reaching almost 120,000 children. We could not confirm this from Cricket South Africa, so it is unconfirmed.

What is missing

Our research found no participation figures from Cricket South Africa, the BCCI or the Pakistan Cricket Board, and no ICC count of registered players. Figures from different bodies use different definitions (fans, registrations, programme places, survey respondents), so they should not be added up to make a world total.

The programmes behind several of these numbers are described on how people learn.