Envisioning a green modernity? The future of cricket in an age of climate crisis

Abstract

This article responds to the recent call made in Sport in Society for scholarship that examines the social and political tensions of the age through cricket. Cricket is shown to be an international sport that emphasises the material, political and symbolic realities of the global climate crisis. Drawing on the concept of social futures, we argue that cricket is a significant site for the staging and perception of climate risks for worldwide audiences, and that a constellation of sporting, political, media and environmental actors are working to establish and communicate a new normative consensus about the game’s role in averting the worst impacts of climate change. As the evidence presented suggests, the urgency of these efforts is underpinned by the sport’s particular susceptibility to extreme heat, drought, rain and flooding, now and into the future.