Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many people under 18 years of age have participated in cricket since 2005.

Data from the Active Lives Children and Young People Survey show that in the 2018-19 academic year 575,800 children and young people in England aged 5-16 participated in cricket at least once a week. This is an increase of 1.8% since the previous year (441,500 in 2017-18) when the survey was launched. Data on those aged 16+ is collected through the Active Lives Survey. Reports and data tables for both surveys can be found on Sport England’s website: https://www.sportengland.org/know-your-audience/data/active-lives.

Grassroots sport is a devolved matter, so data on cricket participation in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is a matter for the devolved administrations of those nations.