Is Cricket a "True" International Sport

As the other sports forums seem to have taken old to some respect, well here is a cricket forum. NOTE: This forum will be heavily moderated and can be revoked at any time is discussions go out of hand.

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Cricket is a world sport.

Poll runs till Mon Jul 11, 2039 5:28 am

Completly Agree
4
24%
Agree
0
No votes
Close Call
3
18%
Disagree
7
41%
Completly Disagree
1
6%
DONT CARE: stupid argument & thanks vkd for creating a sepereate thread i can ignore
2
12%
 
Total votes: 17

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Post by Sandeep »

Varun, you voted for that :D . Cool, I thought Jay voted. And are you 15???? Oh god.
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Post by vkd_1717 »

yes im 15, i thought i told you that in the chat room
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Post by Sandeep »

Ya you told me, but I have to some what over act in thread also right?

Just joking, I forgot
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Post by BSharma »

Cricket is a world sport because it is played in so many countries all over the world.

The debate is more about how seriously is it played outside about a dozen or so countries.

What is the difference between "agree" and "completely agree"? :)
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Post by vkd_1717 »

agree 100% ir agree but sometimes have second thoughts ... i should have made it partially agree sorry
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Post by BSharma »

Is there a way I can vote for "completely agree" and "don't care"? :devil: :kookoo: :D :tomato:
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Post by Sandeep »

Well, soccer also isn't played seriously in many Asian, North American and Australian countries.

Well I would like to put it like this, ODI cricket is relatively very new. It is some 30-35 years old, which is pretty new when compared to most of the sports played. Test cricket noway can be made popular all over world. And more over cricket is still evolving, lot of changes are being made to ODI cricket. BUt cricket is played with passion in most of the test nations. I need not tell about sub continent, Cricket is by far the most popular game. In south Africa cricket is only next to Golf in popularity. It is fastest growing game over there. In Australia also it is played pretty passionately. You can hardly see an empty ground in Australia even for test matches.
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Post by jayakris »

I think I voted for one of the disagree options. Not sure which one.

Cricket is not a world sport, because even its basic rules (say, how many wickets in an innings, how many innings, how many runs for hitting it out of the stadium, how many deliveries in an over, what is the guy who delivers the ball is called) are known to even 5% of the population in only very few countries in the world.

Look at the country ranks by population and it will be clear what an inconsequential sport this is. One country in the top-2 (IND), 4 in top-10 (+PAK,BAN,NGR), 5 in top-21 (+GBR), 6 in top-26 (+RSA) are the only countries where even the basics of cricket is known.

It needs to be known in at least half of the most populous 20 or 30 countries.

If you check the countries by area, it is even worse. There are 2 in top-7 (IND,AUS), 3 in top-25 (+RSA), 4 in top-35 (+PAK). I need at least half of the countreis in the top-25 there too to call it a world sport.

So, on the basis of that, my analysis tells me that cricket is not a world sport. Case closed :)

Jay
Last edited by jayakris on Sun Mar 20, 2005 3:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Indian »

Jay is right!
And, same applies to most popular American sports like american football, baseball, ice hockey, etc. But, Americans still follow it passionately and so nobody is stoppinf you to follow cricket as well. Just don't say that it's a world sport. I say the same to Americans, you have got good sports but don't call yourself a world champion as world is bigger than you think. :)
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Post by Dhruv »

I have to vote reluctantly no. The reason being I am currently at a school that has 300 students from 60+ countries. I take the example of two clubs we have: the cricket club (which practices at the Lords cricket grounds) and the rugby club (which practices at Regents Park) and the makeup of the clubs is indicative of the internationalism of cricket. The rugby club has people from maybe 35 countries on it and 15 countries on the team all of whom are "natives" of that country. The cricket club on the otherhand has barely a a dozen countries represented on it and most (90%+) of the population is subcontinental or "PIO's".

This example although sad seems to indicate that rugby has a greater international appeal than cricket. Oh and most of the rugby team players did not play rugby earlier and had no idea of the rules.
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Post by jayakris »

I too should have said what Dhruv said .. It was a reluctant "disagree" from me.

I would really like to see this game becoming a global game - and in many threads I have said that is my first opposition to how it is handled by the one country that really keeps it alive now - India. If we care for it to be global, then stop talking about how global it is by talking of all the countries that play the world cup qualies and the TV viewership for world cup and all that jazz which is fed to Indians to make it sound like it really matters, and do something about it.

We have done nothing towards that for the last 15 years when we started taking treue (money) leadership in the game. It is a fantastic game that would catch the fancy of a lot of people if they are educated about it. But nothing of that sort happens. It should have been in the Olympics when baseball got into Olympics.

Baseball is probably marginally better in its global appeal on the above stats, but by not much. But it has assured itself of certain basics (such as being in Olympics) to start selling itself as a global game. They do take some grass root steps in many countries to spread baseball. We do nothing of that sort in cricket.

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Post by mugu »

Disagree, of course. This is basically a debate that the cricket-lovers (maybe the odd anti-cricket person as well) start in order to judge the sport’s world-wide acceptance as well as to assess the non-cricket-crazy lobby within the country (I don’t want to say anti-cricket, for a person like me has got nothing against the game. I follow it; enjoy watching a keen Test or one-day match on TV and yet feel cricket has practically killed the rest of the sport in my country, which is another topic that keeps cropping up)
Once we say that the game is played by less than a dozen countries (I always tend to put the number at eight plus some more!) and not jump to the conclusion, as many do in this Forum, that it is played and understood and enjoyed by more than 50 or 60 countries, then there need not be any further debate about its world-wide rating.
But once we start claiming that it is indeed played in 50 or 100 countries (Indians are everywhere in the world of course and it doesn’t take much to form cricket teams, then associations etc) then an argument does ensue. I agree with Jay’s assessment about why it cannot be considered as a world sport but differ with him about the need to make it a world-wide sport or the desire to see it as a global sport. For, I cannot imagine the damage it will cause to Indian (Olympic) sport in general, leaving us with not even the medals that we proudly display in various sport at least at the continental level.
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Post by Sandeep »

Yes, I agree with all of you. But as I said cricket is relatively pretty new compared to other sports.

Jay I disagree with you that no steps are taken for the apread of cricket. Accepted that India is not taking, but ICC has started various programs for the development of cricket. Cricket has come a long long way since the Bradman times when most if the test matches were played among England and Australia. It completely evelvoed from the so called Gentlemen's game to 'MASS' game. One day cricket has drastically changed the popularity of the game. Only after its introduction that we are seeing lot of people participate in cricket. Now that they are planning to introduce 20-20 I think the popularity ratings should still go up. None of these could have been achieved with out developmental programs.

And then coming to spreading rules of cricket, cricket is one of the toughest games to follow. The number of rules involved in cricket is too much. Unless we understand what those are it is very difficult to understand cricket. No.of outs itself included LBW, Runout, Bowled, Catch, Hit wicket. These are just only the number of outs you can see on the field. I didn't even go into things like Mankading and all. But other sports are not so. You can easily watch soccer just by knowing that the aim is to put the ball into goal area. But cricket is not so, you can't watch unless you know all the rules of game atleast basica which only are some 10 to 15. Even when it comes to umpiring there are atleast 10-15 signs sown by umpire. I think this is highest for any sport. Even We Indians who follow the game so passionately doesn't know all the umpiring rules.

I don't think it is easy to spread cricket like how other associations have spread other games. It takes time, but they are doing it. Within next 50 years you will see cricket only next to soccer.

And Mugu, you are talking like a typical frustrated Indian :D . Cricket killed other games?? Noway Mugu. Whatever cricket is today it earned it. There is scope for every one and everything in this world, if you are not able to acgieve somethign doesn't mean other sport spoiled it. In that way I can tell Soccer is killing cricket at world level. No that is not the point. Everyone and everysport today are in a positions where they are because they worked hard for it. No sport is born with money and popularity.
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Post by PKBasu »

Cricket is played and understood in the following countries at least (in rough descending order of population size):
India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Great Britain, Thailand, South Africa, Kenya, Canada, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Australia, Holland, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, UAE, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, Bermuda, Fiji, PNG, Antigua, Grenada. That itself is a very wide cross-section of countries that play the game well.
Apart from this there are several large countries where cricket either has a large following or is understood by a large part of the population (as represented by wide coverage in the national newspapers). These include Argentina, Indonesia, the USA, Nigeria, Uganda, etc.
So of course it is a world sport.
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Post by gvhvhg »

Another reluctant disagree

I wish it were, and I hope it will become so in the future, but as of now Cricket is not a World Sport. As Dhruv said, even when it is played around the world, the makeup of the teams are not very diverse. Heree in new york city you have Jaimacan teams and Indian teams out in Queens.

Cricket is played and understood in the following countries at least (in rough descending order of population size):
India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Great Britain, Thailand, South Africa, Kenya, Canada, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Australia, Holland, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, UAE, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, Bermuda, Fiji, PNG, Antigua, Grenada.
PKB. First off, I would eliminate a few countries from your list. Thailand (having lived there,) Kenya, Malaysia, Ireland, Singapore, Fiji, Bermuda and PNG. These are all nations that may have professional teams in some capacity yes, but Cricket is by no means a major sport in these countries. When Kenya made the world cup semi finals virtually nobody was following it in Kenya. When the tri-series was held last september in Holland, it wasnt televised locally and the crowd on hand was entirely south asian. Sony Max even did a piece where they walked around Amsterdam with a Cricket Ball, which none of the locals could identify.

Another thing is that the cricket that is played in these nations is once again played by the expats from England, India, Pakistan and the West Indies. In order for you to include these countries in your list I would think that the game would have to be played and understood BY THE LOCALS.

Secondly, alot of these countries can be grouped into areas. Especially at the end of your list. That would be the West Indies. Once you group these nations, you find that there are only 3-4 areas of the world where the game is played and understood. A few more, and the game being played by the locals and THEN I WILL SAY that Cricket is an international sport.
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