Friday rant : The unseen side of cricket
One of the real barriers to the effective globalisation of cricket is the disparity in the quality of the teams. Australia have been the best for ages, England, Pakistan and India are close behind, with South Africa, New Zealand and Sri Lanka bringing up the rest of the best. Zimbabwe, the West Indies and Bangladesh are struggling further down.
But therein lies one of the problem - there are only 10 “International” teams and the real disparity is between these 10 test playing nations and all other cricket playing nations. Those unaccredited nations are known as “associates” and include the likes of Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Bermuda and Singapore. These teams will be appearing in the World Cup. Sure, Zimbabwe are no real match for Australia (although stranger things have happened), but equally Canada are no real match for Zimababwe. Frankly, their standard is pretty appalling. I, for one, have already questioned the merit of them playing in the World Cup.
The development of cricket in these nations is a well lamented proposition. Most everyone has an opinion on it. But for those who aren’t regularly engaged in the cricketing sphere of news, will probably overlook the fact that some of these nations are even playing cricket at all. The BBC doesn’t appear to know. Personally, I had no idea that Bermuda, Canada and Zimbabwe were involved in a threesome. Just finding that link on Cricinfo took me a while - it was buried in amongst the popular news about India, Sri Lanka and the West Indies. In fact, at the time of writing not a single news story from any of the smaller nations was on the frontpage, whereas there were 3 about India, a couple more about West Indies, an obligatory “Freddie is God” article, and even coverage of a Sri Lanka tour match against Sussex.
(Fortunately, some people are interested in less visible people playing cricket - step up Nasir M Khan - with a cricket blog almost entirely devoted to “Cricket development”, with a recent and very interesting treatise on the state of developmental cricket sides.)
So what can be done to enable the effective worldwide development of cricket? Foremost, Sambit Bal, editor of CricInfo ought to be shot, dismembered and thrown to the pigs for penning such miserable BS as this:
Chastened and wiser, I can now see the futility of the ambitions, genuine or otherwise, to grow cricket outside its natural habitat and I am prepared to venture that cricket will never catch on. It is just not that kind of a game. Instead of pointlessly envying and aspiring to emulate the growth of football, cricket must spend all its energies trying to preserve and strengthen what exists.
Cricket is not an easy game to start liking. It is a complex and baffling game. It demands utter devotion, infinite patience, certain intellectual engagement, and that utterly scarce commodity: time, lots of it. Also, the cricket lover, particularly those attracted to the alluring charms of Test cricket, must be prepared to enjoy the journey for the sake of it, without obsessing about the destination. Try convincing your American friend that a drawn Test is not a waste of five days.
What a shocking attitude to have. Has this man never seen a game of a cricket? How can he possibly make these ridiculous statements? It’s due to idiots like him that the expansion of cricket is suffering the setbacks. He can take his “Get off my land, we don’t like change” attitude and cram it in his nether regions.
Comments?
Tags: Australia, cricket, development, ECB, England, icc, idiot, madness, rants, rubbish, rude, sri-lankaRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Cricket
3 opinions for Friday rant : The unseen side of cricket
David Jackmanson
May 25, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Some ways to give players in the ‘minnow’ countries experience against the better players - and develop the game - without clogging up World Cups with useless games:
1) A world inter-club or inter-province championship, along the lines the Super 14 in Rugby Union.
2) Long-term program for every provincial/state/county etc team to have one or two ‘minnow’ players on the roster.
3) If above ideas not viable, send lots of state/colt tours to the minnow countries. State- level players might welcome the chance to be noticed and be more willing to do this work than the top players (who let’s face it have earned the right not to play meaningless matches).
Regards David J
SixandOut.net - an International Cricket blog » Gratuitous self-promotion. And something serious. Ish.
May 31, 2006 at 2:52 pm
[…] So why have I bothered posting all this babble? Because it marks an important point - something that I’ve touched on briefly - the development of cricket. Last week I was reading about Bermuda vs Canada on Cricinfo, and this weekend I can actually see Bermuda playing. (Again, probably sounds a lot more glamourous than it really is.) Cricket development is such an ambiguous term. What the hell does it mean? How do you quantify cricket development? You can count the number of people playing for a given area. Or then calculate the proportion of people playing. And the age groups. Or perhaps calculate interest in cricket by considering viewing figures (assuming it’s televised, of course) or match attendances. Or look at the sale of cricket equipment. These items will give a vague idea of how cricket is developing on any specified scale. I actually thought I had a point when I started writing this diatribe. Something meaningful about the state of the game. Actually, I’ve realised two things: […]
Caught Behind! » Blog Archive » Play cricket - It’s good for you!
Jun 2, 2006 at 11:07 am
[…] I fully support it but you could argue “Why bother?” Sambit Bal over at Cricinfo ruffled my feathers last week when he suggested that cricket was not a game for everyone, saying we should “leave Americans to baseball”. That kind of attitude shocked the life out of me - and it was something that I realised with increased clarity during the MCC match. I fielded for 62 overs, scored only a handful of runs in not many overs and got a sunburnt head aaanndd had to pay £10 in match fees for the pleasure… but cricket is brilliant and everyone should be playing it. Back gardens, on the village rec, the village pitch, the county ground, Lords. […]
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