Sri Lanka in India

[prasen9]

There are too many of these for it to be important beyond it being another form of entertainment. No big deal. Except for giving exposure and training to the youngsters.

[arjun2761]

These days TV revenues generally are the bigger revenue source especially if it had national TV audience.

[prasen9]

Has been for a long time.

Also, the idea that cricket is sucking out *all* the talent is only partially true. There are sports that are popular in every country but every country produces champions in many disciplines. For example, soccer is god in South America but they stil produce cyclists, etc. The issue is not about some sort of parity of popularity of sports. That will never happen. The issue is opportunities for people to try out different sports.

I loved football and played football in the summer months and cricket in winter. But, I was good at neither. Or only marginally good. I had some basic opportunity (but no coaching) in track and field and saw that I was good at that. So, I took it up. Cross-training is actually good. So, the point is to have clubs and even better school programs that are required where students can try different sports for some time and then choose to do one that they are good at or be placed in one they are good at and want to do for the middle school years, etc.

Even if the stands go empty, we will not get sportsmen. We will get engineers or accountants, etc. We need sports infrastructure and opportunity and a system and then even with cricket sucking out the best talent, we will have enough to supply our badminton, tennis, shooting, etc. pipelines.

[Rajkumar Sharma]

After Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, Shivam Mavi is another pacer who has lost great amount of pace. He was someone who caught eye bowling at 150+ constantly in that 2018 U19WC, and now he is hardly touching 140+. Team needs proper coach to train bowlers who has got pace, otherwise we might loose these rare talents.

Yes, but it is natural for people to lose pace. What they see is that the human body cannot bowl at that much pace without very good technique. Technique has to be taught and built up early on. It is possible to learn but it is difficult to change your technique when you are worrying about international cricket and breaking into it. These players get injured and the doctor's say that is because of how they bowl especially when they bowl fast. So, they have a choice. They decide to bowl slower to elongate their career. This will happen in some cases but we need a good coach and biomechanical expert to see if these folks and others can increase their pace while simplifying their motions so that they get less injured.

Surprisingly, It happens only to indian fast bowlers. Brett Lee, Shane Bond, Akhtar, Tait, all these guys had injuries but their pace didnt drop once they made return after injury, infact they became more lethal. Fast bowling culture havent been developed properly and the coaches, doctors, trainers destroys these talents by asking them to reduce their pace. Mavi's under 19 bowling partner Nagarkoti also started bowling with brisk pace, now he like Mavi has also reduced plenty of pace. Our poor performance in SENA countries is all because coaches haven't given priority to pace previously. Once Kohli became captain & Arun has coach, pace became a huge factor for success.

[jayakris]

Also, the idea that cricket is sucking out *all* the talent is only partially true. There are sports that are popular in every country but every country produces champions in many disciplines. For example, soccer is god in South America but they stil produce cyclists, etc. The issue is not about some sort of parity of popularity of sports. That will never happen. The issue is opportunities for people to try out different sports
...
We need sports infrastructure and opportunity and a system and then even with cricket sucking out the best talent, we will have enough to supply our badminton, tennis, shooting, etc. pipelines.

Yeah, I don't believe cricket is sucking out talent or that the cricketers could have been better at some other sports. Probably not. The guys who make it are guys with skills and mental aspects suited for cricket, and not other sports.

The problem really has been in terms of kids' interest in trying other sports, and opportunities to do that. Some waste years trying to play cricket and dreaming to be the next Sachin or Kohli or Bumhrah. But if they had the opportunity to try other sports (like you said) they could do well in that and move away earlier from cricket when they see that cricket doesn't suit them. The only sport they seem to get opportunities in, is actually badminton (everywhere) and volleyball (in many places). So, not surprisingly, India is in fact quite good at badminton, and can be quite easily good in volleyball at the world top-15 or 20 level (if only our federation would make the proper efforts). Hockey is played by so few kids in the world that we have sufficient number of kids playing it in the few pockets where it is played in India and the infrastructure available there are world class now. So we are good at hockey at the highest level, somewhat as expected (top-5).

In my opinion, the only sport affected purely by cricket is football. Cricket takes infrastructure and playing fields away from soccer, including school grounds, back alleys and small spaces in towns. So the kids who find themselves to be no good at cricket really do not not take to football and play enough to get good at it. And football needs a LOT of playing time to get good at.

Tennis' problem in India is not cricket taking away infrastructure or playing space (or talented kids), but simply the kids not being able to try out tennis at all, as we never built enough tennis courts. Maybe badminton is the curse for tennis in India. Badminton courts are smaller and easier/cheaper to make, so we have a lot of such courts that middle-income kids can try out (again, once they find they are no good in cricket first) - and only very few try out tennis. I would say that only 1 in a 1000 Kerala kids who didn't cut it in cricket has even been able to see a tennis racket and hold it, let alone be on a court to play with it.

Anyway, my feeling is that our cricket fever has affected only football seriously, as it takes away kids' opportunities to play much football (the easiest game for kids' to try, not really needing any equipment). Cricket doesn't affect other sports all that much. Maybe none at all. Maybe it delays some kids' attempt at other sports by a couple of years by the time they are 10 or 12 years old. I don't blame cricket for any sport's problems, except football's.

But the Malayali football lover in me, wants to see cricket go away from Kerala. Maybe from Bengal too. Will be no big loss for Indian cricket, after all! Could be some noticeable gain for Indian football.

[Atithee]

^^ Jay, cricket taking football grounds in Indian schools is balderdash. Every single school I’ve attended or see even now has the ubiquitous football goal posts. That kids play cricket in the ground is a different matter.

[jayakris]

^^^ What balderdash? You are saying the same thing I am saying. Of course, no football ground has gone away. Just that the kids only play cricket there, and kids can't form a football team and play when even 2 kids come with sticks and plant them in the middle. End of playing football for the evening, as everybody joins for cricket,which is their dream sport anyway. Cricket is a fun and relaxing game to play! I didn't say that any football field went away. My point was that the kids don't football there. Same with every back alley and open space in residential neighborhoods. I only see kids play cricket wherever I go in India on the street. Even in Kerala. Horrible.

Football goalposts are all over there in India. The least utilized goal posts in the world

[Atithee]

^^^This is what you wrote, Jay:

Cricket takes infrastructure and playing fields away from soccer, including school grounds, back alleys and small spaces in towns.

[prasen9]

Surprisingly, It happens only to indian fast bowlers. Brett Lee, Shane Bond, Akhtar, Tait, all these guys had injuries but their pace didnt drop once they made return after injury, infact they became more lethal. Fast bowling culture havent been developed properly and the coaches, doctors, trainers destroys these talents by asking them to reduce their pace. Mavi's under 19 bowling partner Nagarkoti also started bowling with brisk pace, now he like Mavi has also reduced plenty of pace. Our poor performance in SENA countries is all because coaches haven't given priority to pace previously. Once Kohli became captain & Arun has coach, pace became a huge factor for success.

Bond, Tait, and to a lesser extent Akhtar and Lee had shorter careers especially the first two along with Ryan Harris, Nathan Bracken, Ian Bishop, and Simon Jones. You may have a point though. Earlier bowlers from the SENA countries did reduce their pace. I think McGrath was one such player. He was never super fast but I will check. I may be wrong. Nowadays I do not see any of them reduce their pace maybe because the teams select based on pace and have a pace obsession. This is why Mitchell Stark plays all the games even though he is not as good a bowler on certain pitches. The Aussies think that they need a bowler with real pace to complement the Hazlewoods of the world. Arguably, they have missed a trick in not supporting the Pattinsons, Nassers, and Bolands, of the world.

We lost in SENA countries because our batters were horrible. And, we did not have pace bowlers. Shami does not bowl at much greater pace than Venkatesh Prasad. Bumrah, Shami, Siraj, Ishant, etc. were not tearaway pace bowlers. They were high 130, low 140 bowlers. Pace is over-rated. We need people who can bowl. Control is also important. Often, the bowlers coming to international cricket find that raw pace may frighten the guy from Tripura (okay not named Saha) but does nothing for the guy from Tasmania. People like our new find from J&K realize that control is very important. They try to get more control by giving up pace. We need to get coaches who can teach our bowlers how to bowl with control without giving up pace.

It will be interesting to see what Bumrah does after his first serious and long injury break. His action is not sustainable on the body. We all knew that. But, it was fun to enjoy it while it lasted. Hope he can come back and give us more years of sublime bowling.

[jayakris]

^^^This is what you wrote, Jay:
Cricket takes infrastructure and playing fields away from soccer, including school grounds, back alleys and small spaces in towns.

Yes, Atithee. By that I didn't mean that football fields or goal posts went away with "cricket field" boards placed there. Cricket took the fields and spaces away from the kids who would otherwise have thought of playing football there. It is the kids themselves who did this though. Like I said, cricket is more interesting to play, especially when the whole country has that as the religion and that is what they see from a very young age on TV most of the time as the glamorous game.

You said, "

Every single school I’ve attended or see even now has the ubiquitous football goal posts. That kids play cricket in the ground is a different matter.

That is all I am saying. That means cricket took away the football field! We are saying the same thing.

[srini]

I would disagree with the assertion that Cricket is more interesting. As a kid i played only cricket and watched mostly cricket. But after the bang-bang league (IPL) started, i could bear only he 1st two editions and the bang-bang league actually made me un-follow the 50 over matches too. I'm not sure why the phenomena that got me disinterested in Cricket as a game, is not doing the same to kids! I can see more kids taking up a diverse profile of sports like basketball, tennis but not as much as i would have expected from this phenomena.