Thursday, July 26, 2018

Do Indians really love Cricket?

Cricket is considered the most popular sport in India. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is one of the richest sports organizations in the world and cricket players command a huge fan following in India. Even the International Cricket Council (ICC) has to be very careful while dealing with matters related to India and take every precaution not to hurt BCCI, such is the power and dominance of BCCI. This is all due to the immense popularity of cricket which generates a huge revenue compared to any other cricket-playing nation in the world. Indian Premier League (IPL) is an immensely successful venture of BCCI where all international cricket stars want to play not just for money but also for the popularity and fan following they get by playing in the IPL. So, one might think that the question of whether Indians really love cricket is meaningless because whatever I wrote so far clearly indicates that Indians are crazy about cricket. In the media also there is a strong perception that Indians love cricket. I pondered over this question for quite some time and I realized that Indians ONLY love a certain type of cricket, not all types of cricket. Their love for this game is very very selective. I did not realize the selective nature of this love until I thought about this issue and I consider myself a cricket lover. 

If we look at other sport-loving countries like the USA where sports like basketball and baseball are very popular, the distinguishing feature is that they have a fan following at every level of that game. College or university teams have a huge fan following, and their games also attract a large number of fans. NFL (National Football League) is very popular but college football is also popular. But in India college or school or even state-level cricket has no fan following. People don't even know when and where their university teams play their games, when are inter-university tournaments organized, and how many times their university won any such championships. State-level games also suffer from poor attendance even when star players play for their respective states. My observation is that Indians like to watch ONLY certain types of cricket. They love watching international cricket matches in which India is involved, all ICC world cups, and T20 tournaments with international stars, rest of the cricket they just don't care. This is a very unique and interesting pattern, this can also be the reason for India's inability to produce international-level sportspersons in other sports despite having so much raw talent. A certain type of cricket gets very disproportionate attention and revenue in India, and this phenomenon has resulted in overall poor sports culture. A sports culture where apart from cricket no other sports is not considered a viable career option. Even cricket gained this status very recently after the success of IPL which opened doors for many local players and helped them to earn a decent living. As long as this selective passion for cricket continues India will struggle to produce quality sports talent in other sports due to a lack of comprehensive sports culture like countries like the USA and Australia. Fans of any sport need to support that sport at every level so that there is recognition at every level which can help to build a sustainable sports culture. Until this happens India's unique love affair with cricket will continue but it won't make India a sports-loving nation.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

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