Is Cricket a Dying World Sport?

India is said to be a multi cultural, multi dimensional country. Looks can be deceiving and while you hear things like "great economic growth" and "population of 1 billion plus" we also see the disastrous performance of India in sport.

India is a one dimensional country in many ways. Cricket is the only sport which is either followed or played. Watching a debate yesterday on TV has inspired me to write this and I feel very strongly about this issue. We've witnessed the most boring World Cup in the history of World Cups and this is, in my opinion was the final nail in the coffin of a dying sport.

Let’s look at the big picture. Cricket may be a young game, but the way it has "evolved" has not left a great taste in people's mouths. Cricket is the only sport which has more than 2 formats. Why change? If test cricket is the only format which matters to cricketers, why make them play 50 overs and why 20 overs? It is ridiculous! The development of the sport on a global basis has degenerated and the quality of the teams which participate are reducing rapidly. In which other sport today would we see 3 consecutive World Cup wins by the same country?

Cricket's revenues are also heavily dependant on the sub continent. Apparently, 65-70% of the TV revenues come from India. So, India's failure in the sport would lead to a potential loss of 60% of the overall TV revenue. This coupled with the lack of crowds makes things very disastrous for the sport.

I also heard the guys on the debate talk about Indian genes not being able to withstand the physicality of a game like football or hockey. This is the biggest load of garbage I've ever heard. The simple fact is that nobody is taking an effort to develop the infrastructure for sport in our country. The media gets only 1 sport to focus on, cricket. The advertisers get only 2 types of endorsers, cricketers or bollywood actors - both of whom are overrated and not worth a single penny to any brand.

The simple fact is that for a person who has never watched cricket - watching it for the first time can be a painful experience. The sport has too many rules, is too ‘stop start’ and quite honestly is a snooze fest. A football manager once said "How can you tell your wife that you're going off to play a sport for 5 days?" He might not understand the traditions of cricket, but honestly nobody who watches it for the first time will. Furthermore, the disastrous World Cup is going to reduce the number of people watching the sport.

The younger generation today, albeit in cities are switching over to football. The English Premier League is a much more attractive viewing option for many, including me. We love watching Arsenal vs. Man Utd or Chelsea vs. Liverpool. I cannot say the same for Bangladesh vs. India.

At the end of the day, India will remain a cricket crazy nation. News channels will allot 28 minutes for cricket and 2 minutes for other sports. That just shows that we as a nation are not progressing on all fronts, sports wise. Finally - my commiserations to ESPN-Star, as they have the rights to broadcast the next 8 years of ICC tournaments. I wonder how many more formats this game will bring out by then!