All this IPL and ICL stuff is just a big pile of money making vomit. So in the interest of cricket, why would anyone want to play in vomit?
Pardon my double posting, but I put this on the wrong thread first time round - I hope newbies are allowed the occasional mistake!!
Hello everyone, my first post on this forum. Following forumites with 16,000+ and 7,000+ postings is somewhat daunting!
Cricket was my first love as a sport, but my main sport now is fencing, hence the none cricket related "nom de plume". I am also a geography teacher.
Leaving aside the silly slanging matches in parts of this thread (which happen in all forums) let's look at the facts.
Cricket is a business as well as a sport and is not immune to the shifts in global power and influence. In fact I would say it it showing the way of the future.
Uncomfortable as it my be for me sitting on a sofa on a cold day in Nottingham, The future lies further east.
India and China between then contain about 37% of the World population (2.4 billion out of 6.5 billion). Add in Pakistan and Bangladesh and you have over 40% of the World Population.
Up until now those population have been so poor that they have not had the financial or political muscle to affect world events.
Even a slight rise in the average wealth of these two nations will see a massive change in the economic and political centre of the world.
The Indian Cricket League is just the start. Whether is is a good thing or a bad thing is irrelevant, you might as well debate whether sunrise is a good thing. All we can do is learn to live with it.
If you add together the populations of every other cricket playing nation on the planet (including Pakistan) it would not even get to 50% of the popultation of India - and by all accounts Cricket dominates the sporting climate of that country.
20:20 cricket is the game for the modern generation. In the "more developed" world children are losing the ability to concentrate on tasks. The "entertain me" generation are brought up on interactive TV, video games, fast food and ipods - all things with high levels of sensory input. They are losing the ability to entertain themselves and concentrate on something a long drawn out as 50 over cricket - never mind the 4 and 5 day game.
I hope this helps the debate and I would urge everyone to keep the racial card in their back pocket.