Maybe it's true, maybe it's not... But I kind of get a creepy feeling that the popularity of Cricket in India is losing and losing rapidly. I've noticed it since the tri-series in Malaysia a few months back, leading to the champions trophy and now the South Africa tour.
People used to talk about India's performance in tea shops, over SMS', while chit chatting. I mean, anyone who walks into a pool of friends on any given match day, can listen to all those expert opinions. I don't see that happening now.
Maybe one reason is India's recent form and their dismal performance. One more reason that I can attribute to it the overexposure that cricket is getting through the Visual Media. Almost all the news channels have a cricket based program and the newspapers also report on them extensively. Other than the hardcore cricket fans, who can also take India's failure into stride, a layman who wants to tempter his patriotism on a weekend is not ready to digest this failure.
I think people have started to realize the slow pace of the medium called Cricket and the younger generation or the Gen X is interested in fast paced, highly competitive sports (motorsports, football).
When you take Indian team's history, there has always been star performers and they kept the crowd pulling in. From Kapil Dev to Gavaskar to Sachin, Sehwag and Dravid.
Sachin, Sehwag and Dravid are into their early 30s and they have only a few year of cricket remaining in them. The most worrying for the indian cricket fraternity is that there's no one in the new line up who has the character and charisma of these big stars. Yes, Dhoni is an exception, but he is not getting any opportunity in terms of batting (do i smell politics here).
Whatever the reasons are, I think India needs to win a tournament or two fast to retain its number 1 slot in the Indian sports lovers mind.
People used to talk about India's performance in tea shops, over SMS', while chit chatting. I mean, anyone who walks into a pool of friends on any given match day, can listen to all those expert opinions. I don't see that happening now.
Maybe one reason is India's recent form and their dismal performance. One more reason that I can attribute to it the overexposure that cricket is getting through the Visual Media. Almost all the news channels have a cricket based program and the newspapers also report on them extensively. Other than the hardcore cricket fans, who can also take India's failure into stride, a layman who wants to tempter his patriotism on a weekend is not ready to digest this failure.
I think people have started to realize the slow pace of the medium called Cricket and the younger generation or the Gen X is interested in fast paced, highly competitive sports (motorsports, football).
When you take Indian team's history, there has always been star performers and they kept the crowd pulling in. From Kapil Dev to Gavaskar to Sachin, Sehwag and Dravid.
Sachin, Sehwag and Dravid are into their early 30s and they have only a few year of cricket remaining in them. The most worrying for the indian cricket fraternity is that there's no one in the new line up who has the character and charisma of these big stars. Yes, Dhoni is an exception, but he is not getting any opportunity in terms of batting (do i smell politics here).
Whatever the reasons are, I think India needs to win a tournament or two fast to retain its number 1 slot in the Indian sports lovers mind.
Bingo, rightly said boy! Best example for this could be the Champions Trophy turn-out at a high-profile venue like Mumbai. It was pathetic even for an India match. Definitely something wrong!!
ReplyDelete