The International Cricket Council's (ICC) global survey was the first global market research project undertaken by the ICC into the sport and was conducted among people aged between 16 to 69 years. It also revealed that cricket has 61% male and 39% female fans.
There was good news for women's cricket in this survey with two-thirds of cricket fans saying that they are interested in women’s cricket (68%) and the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup (65%). 70% of fans wanted to see more live coverage of women’s cricket according to this survey
Cricket analyst and Associate Professor at Amity School of Communication, Vidhanshu Kumar tells SBS Hindi,
"The survey shows that female fan following of the game is continuously rising and the gender disbalance in viewership of cricket is slowly reducing. One reason for this is that ICC has been promoting women’s cricket in recent times."
"The survey also revealed that 70% of the people were interested in watching Test cricket, although T20 events were most popular at 90% while one-day cricket's (ODI) popularity was at 88 %. But given that 70% fans like Test cricket it's not going away," says Mr Kumar
Vidhanshu Kumar tells SBS Hindi that the driving engine of global cricket is now India.
"This survey reveals that 90% of the fans are from the Indian subcontinent. If you look at the business of cricket, in the 1970’s when you had the Karry Packer series in Australia, that was a time when cricket got a spike. Cricket business, television revenues, ticket sales, these things really grew."
"After the mid-90s, especially after the world cup was played in India in 1996, the center of power of cricket came to India. The reason for this was that India had more fans. If you look at TRPs, a match between India and Pakistan has the highest rating, more than ashes or a match between Australia and South Africa. The maximum viewers watching the matches are in India and because of this cricket has kept getting new sponsors."
Speaking about the BCCI (The Board of Control for Cricket in India), Mr Kumar tells SBS Hindi,
World Series Cricket - Australia v West Indies (Patrick Eagar/Popperfoto/Getty Images) Source: Patrick Eagar/Popperfoto/Getty Images
India's Kuldeep Yadav is congratulated by team mates after dismissing David Willey. AAP Image/ David Davies/PA Wire Source: AAP Image/ David Davies/PA Wire
"If you look at the newspapers of the 80s and 90s, that time England Cricket Board and Cricket Australia, formerly known as ACB, these were the two boards that use to decide everything. But now without BCCI’s consent, you cannot take any big decision related to cricket. That is because most of the money for cricket is coming from India." 
Mr Kumar also made a mention of IPL (Indian Premier League) and suggested that it had revived the shorter format of the game and got new fans to the game.
Indian Fans - AAP Image/ Mark Kerton/PA Wire Source: AAP Image/ Mark Kerton/PA Wire
Members of Chennai Super Kings pose with trophy in 2018 - AAP Image/ AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool Source: AAP Image/ AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool
