“THROUGH the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.” The opening sentence of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury applied to the scene on a council estate in East London this week, but unlike the theme of his work, this signified substantially more than nothing.

There, on a strip of concrete across an urban park, half a dozen children had set up a rudimentary wicket and were playing a game with a set of spring-loaded stumps. Cricket, like the daffodils, has returned at last.

Across Britain, the game is blossoming again, as it always does at this time of year, but the blossom seems thicker, more colourful, more pungent. There is a tangible impression, from the county grounds to the village greens, that the enthusiasm for the game that evolved last summer and erupted when Kevin Pietersen saved the final Test to win the series against Australia remains as strong as ever. The Ashes effect has survived the winter.

Almost all the counties are reporting significant increases in membership and corporate interest for this season, which will be a relief after the revenue losses that many faced last year.

At Surrey, the stage for the Ashes finale, membership has increased by 5 per cent, despite relegation in the county championship last season. Corporate sales are as strong as last year, which Paul Sheldon, the chief executive, said is “amazing, considering this is not an Ashes year”. The final Test against Pakistan this summer was sold out before Christmas.

Hampshire provided two of the principal actors in last summer’s drama, Shane Warne and Pietersen, so it is understandable that demand to see them has soared at the Rose Bowl. The biggest increase in membership is in the junior and family sections, the latter up by 12 per cent. The county is making another push for new members this week.

Some pockets of the county game have yet to see a big boost, however. Northamptonshire and Essex reported similar numbers of members to last year, although they have sold their corporate boxes for this season. Nonetheless, they also have cause to be optimistic, with Monty Panesar, the Northamptonshire spinner, and Alastair Cook, the Essex batsman, expected to be in the England squad to defend the Ashes next winter after a successful tour to India.

Panesar and Cook were at Upminster Cricket Club in Essex last weekend to mark the start of the second year of NatWest CricketForce, an ECB scheme to encourage people to volunteer to maintain and renovate their local grounds. Some 70,000 people volunteered for the weekend at 1,050 clubs (out of 8,000 nationally) and the ECB has calculated that their work was worth about £25 million to the club game. “With the Ashes effect, we knew what to expect,” David Leighton, the ECB’s national development manager, said.

MICHAEL VAUGHAN’S Ashes summer began last April with a gentle net at Sheffield Collegiate, the club he played for when he was younger and the seven-times champions of the Yorkshire League. An eager group of 6 to 13-year-olds charged in to bowl at him at the launch of his eponymous cricket academy, which is held every Friday evening at Abbeydale, Collegiate’s home ground.

“We’re very lucky to have the link with Michael,” Mark Longley, the club secretary, said. “The kids love it when he comes down and it’s undoubtedly a massive influence on them taking up the game.”

After reporting significant interest throughout the winter, the club, who introduced an under-11 team for the first time two years ago, will have four under-11 teams this year as well as two at under-9 and three at under-13 level.

The most positive sign of the Ashes effect is how many children have become interested in the game and that the interest has held long after the ticker-tape from the Ashes celebrations was swept from London’s Trafalgar Square.

At Lord’s last Easter, nearly 300 children enrolled in the MCC’s training courses. This year there are more than 500, although the increase is partly explained by the decision to include eight to ten-year-olds. Coaching clinics at the indoor cricket school during term time and on Saturdays have been fully booked all winter.