It isnt a problem if people are aware of what the number means, however, it is frequently not presented this way. A rising participation number, attributed to a rise in school programs, is usually presented as growth of the sport, good news, etc etc.People seem to get annoyed about kids playing a specific school sport as being counted as a participant.
If the PE curriculum includes 5 or 6 sports for the year, then those 5 or 6 can count those kids as participants, and the other 30 sports that exist out there cannot.
However, making kids who have no interest in cricket, and no interest in sport, take part in a school sports program, cannot be considered to be a sign of a sports growth or success.
This doesnt mean that the school sports programs are not important. However, if the school sports programs are a cause of a sports growth, and signs of health, then this will be reflected in the growth of actual registered participants.
What we are seeing is, registered player numbers fall, while total participation increases, due to sports programs. The falling player numbers show however, that the vast majority of those school participants play at school, and then give it up immediately.
This is actually a bad combination in my opinion. If you have gotten schools to take up cricket programs in a big way, so that total participation numbers are great, but they dont go on to play cricket, so registered numbers keep falling, where do you go from there?
All that said, there are lots of junior cricket comps in my area, I see quite a few games on over the weekend, so I would have believed registered player numbers way higher than quoted.