Climate change to have increasing impact on cricket around the world

Climate change and severe weather event is placing cricketers at all levels of the game and around the world at increasing risk due to playing in extreme conditions according to a new report..

The new Hit for Six: The Danger Zone report, highlights how the second most popular sport in the world (cricket has 2.5 billion fans globally) is being played in dangerously hot and humid conditions that increasingly put its players and fans at risk.

Authored by not-for-profit groups Climate Central, FrontRunners, The British Association for Sustainability in Sport (BASIS), and The Next Test, the report analyses the increase in extreme heat and humidity on the Indian subcontinent and in other cricket-loving regions like the United Kingdom, the West Indies, and Australia.

Noting the impact of rising temperatures on cricketers at both grassroots and international level, it points out that nearly 50% of the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) 2025 matches were played in conditions of 'Extreme Caution' or 'Danger' on the Heat Index - a measure that combines air temperature and humidity to assess heat-related risk.

Warning that the game is facing its 'ultimate test', former West Indies captain Daren Ganga writes in the report's introduction "there is no doubt in my mind that today cricket faces its ultimate test.

"Forget concerns around different formats, TV deals or the battle for eyeballs in a multi-screen age.

"This challenge is an existential one and it comes in the form of a rapidly changing climate."

A follow-up from the original Hit for Six report released in 2019, the new document illustrates how vulnerable cricket and its participants are to rising temperatures, particularly in the IPL, the sport's most valuable league.

The report says India in 2024 recorded 52 days with temperatures at or above 37 degrees Celsius - the threshold beyond which outdoor activity becomes unsafe - an increase from the five-year average of 46 days.

Australia has also registered an average of 46 days above that temperature, with Pakistan recording 83 days per year on average above that mark.

Additionally, the number of hazardous heat days - days when the temperature is hotter than 90% of those observed in a local area over the 1991-2020 period - has jumped significantly in multiple Indian cities.

The effects of increased temperatures on people range from cramps through to nausea, fatigue and breathlessness, among other issues.

Given cricket is normally played in the summer months, that has a direct impact on the game at every level, from international to local club cricket.

Dr Mike Tipton, Professor of Human & Applied Physiology at the Extreme Environments Laboratory at the University of Portsmouth, told the report "we're witnessing a clear trend towards more frequent and more intense heat conditions for key cricketing nations.

"Players are now being asked to perform in environments that are not just uncomfortable, but potentially dangerous, with rising temperatures and humidity levels pushing human physiology toward its upper limits.

"This isn't just about performance - it's increasingly a question of player safety."

The report has recommended that national federations join Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board in implementing new heat policy guidelines and called on the International Cricket Council to implement an Air Quality Index cut-off point and sign up to the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework.

Image: Drought impacted cricket oval in regional Victoria.