Indian influence good or bad for cricket?

[vcs]

Yeah, I think people are looking askance at the somewhat curiously scheduled 2 Test series at home against SA and Australia last year. But still, it takes two to tango and those respective boards were up for it as well. And not to mention, as competitors for that top spot, it also gave them an opportunity to dethrone India.

 

[Spark]

is it for the number one spot or more to maximize the last years of tendulkar, dravid, laxman, in particular, the first? lots of money to be made from it. i imagine that playing series in lanka with a rubbish bowling attack is not the best way to hold onto the number 1 spot (they did play a series in lanka last august or september, didn't they? getting old.)

I think the way the rankings system works, they simply weren't playing enough Tests to hold on to the #1 ranking. But a good point you make.

 

[Jono]

The 2 test series vs. South Africa and Australia in 2010 were not part of the schedule (both South Africa and Australia had been to India in 2008) but added in place of ODIs. That can only be a good thing.

 

[Blaze 18]

Yeah, a two test series>>>seven match ODI series.

 

[Spark]

The 2 test series vs. South Africa and Australia in 2010 were not part of the schedule (both South Africa and Australia had been to India in 2008) but added in place of ODIs. That can only be a good thing.

I said I wasn't complaining

Although a few people here did IIRC, which was weird.

 

[Jono]

Yeah I was more referring to the complaints back when the series was announced.

 

[vcs]

I can't say I'm a huge fan of 2-Test series as a rule (makes it impossible to recover from a bad start), but yeah they're preferable to yet another bilateral ODI series.

Also, from the point of view of analyzing a player's statistics, it's very hard to compare two guys who have both played 10 Tests in a particular country, one who has played 5 2-match series and the other who has played 2 5-match series. Especially if they are batsmen.

 

[Jono]

I doubt anyone likes 2 test series.

But India vs. SA has 3 test series normally, and the 2 test series was a bonus. India vs. Australia is usually a 4 test series, and the 2 test series was also a bonus.

It's like you normally get a whole chocolate every Sunday, but this one time you also get a chocolate, but only half, on Wednesday. You're not going to say "nah **** off, I want a whole one".

 

[Spark]

I mean in the end we got a few gift tests. Tests >>> No tests, simple as.

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I also think those moaning about the decline of the game would do well to remember where we were this time four years ago.

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And Jono I have a box full of Maltesers right in front of my now so your analogy is lost on me

 

[Jono]

Maltesers

 

[BoyBrumby]

Need to think about this more (leaning towards the "less than brilliant" option due to the whole Zimbabwe fiasco, failure to properly tackle corruption, UDRS fiasco etc, but then by that measure no country can be seen as being "good for cricket") but this is also worth posting, even if it is Roebuck in typical overdramatic Roebuck form:

A worthless corrupt pursuit

WAC that man is. Never misses a chance of a dig at his former home country.

Only the English - if they can be so called - and the Pakistanis will miss the tournament.

The English have foreign born players? Well hold the front page and close the borders immediately. How has no-one noticed this before?

The irony of the bitter old closet case decrying foreign-born players from his *** dungeon in Sydney is obviously lost on him.

Moving onto the topic at hand, I don't think there's any arguments to be made that India's influence is unequivocally good or bad. The revenue and the world focus a nation of (IIRC) 1.2 billion brings to a sport that fewer than two dozen countries treat even vaguely seriously (and that's including the West Indian nations as sepeate sovreign states) is a good thing; the propping up of babarous dictators because their cricket board votes with the Asian bloc, the riding roughshod over due process when the BCCI feels all butt-hurty (the whole Symonds/Harbhajan dealy, the outrageous removal of the admirable Steve Bucknor and the Mike Denness affair) and the general mistrust of UDRS bad things.

"Mostly good" is just too much of a stretch, but it's the closest to "just about more good than bad", which is how I feel.

 

[salman85]

The Indian influence on Cricket has it's bad points,but the good ones outweigh them for the moment.Whether that remains the case in the in the future remains to be seen,but things look good for the moment.

 

[Sanz]

the propping up of babarous dictators because their cricket board votes with the Asian bloc, the riding roughshod over due process when the BCCI feels all butt-hurty (the whole Symonds/Harbhajan dealy, the outrageous removal of the admirable Steve Bucknor and the Mike Denness affair) and the general mistrust of UDRS bad things.

I can understand the Mike Dennis/Steve Bucknor (not admirable btw) incident being a bad thing but one can hardly blame India for voting with the Asian Block considering how Eng/Aus/NZ vote. India's rise as the world cricketing power wasn't without the help of Pakistanis, who helped bring the first WC in subcontinent in 1987.

 

[keeper]

On the pitch, brilliant - how could it be anything else?

Off the pitch, sports administrators are sports administrators. Whatever the sport or nationality they are either corrupt or incompetent or both.

India have at times come over like bling bling lottery winners and don't always wear their new wealth and power all that well, but probably preferable to the stuffy colonialists of the MCC.

While Test cricket retains its integrity I'm not sure it really affects me all that much.

 

[mono]

i find the term 'franchise' cringe worthy. I truely fear for the future of the game. just one look at the blip and it's pretty obvious to me that eventually cricket will become nothing more than a corporate whore.

 

[salman85]

I agree with the corporate whore thing.But we live in a world that's a corporate whore.Sooner or later,everything will will 'corporate whore'.

Other than Paris Hilton.Who is just a whore.

 

[GotSpin]

i find the term 'franchise' cringe worthy. I truely fear for the future of the game. just one look at the blip and it's pretty obvious to me that eventually cricket will become nothing more than a corporate whore.

So do I - Nothing else can explain why every nation continues to play so many ODI series - but corporatism is a modern day infliction, not an Indian one. They just do it quite well.

Franchise and cricket are disgusting words in the same sentence though

 

[juro]

I don't think it is healthy for the sport that 70% of the sport's revenue comes from one country. But then I would much rather have that 70% going towards cricket than towards some other sport!

 

[Shri]

Wouldn't be surprised if cricket goes american style in India in a few years with franchise cricket taking over all formats. An IPL style FC competition with overseas players and good television coverage in jizz worthy.

 

[hang on]

The retabling of the associates in the world cup motion is certainly a step in the right direction. Apparently with India as the prime mover, but with quite a bit behind the scenes, one would imagine.

A magnanimous gesture underpinned by a sense of responsibility to the game and its expansion? Perhaps. A simple response to criticism and media pressure etc.? Possibly, but why would the BCCI really care given that their home market is not really interested, by and large, in the 'minnows' and their games.