Gideon Haigh asks in the Guardian an interesting question in light of India’s miserable performance at the World Cup:
India is cricket’s financial hub, providing 70% of the game’s global income; India’s most lucrative franchise is the rivalry with Pakistan. Over the past five to seven years, under Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, India have achieved on-field success to complement their off-field stature: it has been worth playing India in a cricket sense as well as a financial one. But what are the implications if the world’s richest cricket nation and its opposing team of choice rank among its poorer teams in performance?
Haigh doesn’t have any good answers, other pointing out the rot that has set in all cricket organizations, including the ICC. Indeed, there are no good answers. For a long time cricket enthusiast, I haven’t watched any cricket nor do I know who is playing whom. And when. I didn’t learn about Bangladesh beating South Africa until a couple of days ago. It’s a pity because in spite of the presence of (indeed, deserving) minnows in the Super 8, there is some good cricket being played. True, it has taken an eternity to get the Semifinal stage and it has been very difficult to muster any enthusiasm until now.
Is this the charamagite (funeral song) for World Cricket, at least for the time being? I don’t know.
Haigh’s piece has a couple of good lines on BCCI.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), with its unruly blend of hypercapitalism and feudalism, exhibits the entrepreneurial ebullience of Don King.
and
And if the jet-propelled bullock cart that is the BCCI remains incapable of producing a team worth the country’s cumulative talent, what then?
Indeed. Jet-propelled bullock cart, heh!
Post a Comment