Why are desis so fanatical about cricket?

[Gollum]

I have interacted with a few Aussies and Brits and some of them knew very little about cricket. On the other hand in SC cricket is a religion. Why is it so and when did this happen? I can understand Bangladesh's love for the game because they suck in other sports and are in general an entertainment starved country but why India, Pakistan and Lanka? Many commonwealth countries are there but not all are cricket crazy, even in countries where cricket is a major sport it isn't such a big hit among the masses.

 

India: We had a champion team in football post independence, have won Asia Cup, finished 4th in Olympics and qualified for 1950 FIFA WC. Moreoever we have a strong club culture in Kolkata, Goa, Kerala etc, some of them having more than 150 years history. Similarly we were the greatest hockey team once upon a time with 8 Olympic Gold medals and the GOAT of hockey Major Dhyan Chand in our ranks. In tennis we had the likes of Ramanathan Krishnan and Vijay Amritraj who were top 20 in their time and made multiple singles semi finals winning over the likes of Laver, Rosewall, Newcombe, Roche, Connors, Ashe, Mcenroe, Bjorg etc...absolute heavyweights of the game. Over the years we have produced champions in badminton, kabaddi, chess, wrestling, shooting, archery, golf, boxing, weightlifting, volleyball, athletics, billiards/snooker etc. But no other sport has captures public imagination like cricket. By most estimates it was already our no 1 sport in the 60s when our cricket team was pants and our hockey/football teams were setting the world stage on fire. But even for those who say that 1983 WC changed the sporting scene I would like to know how it sustained public interest during the dark days of the 90s, even our field hockey team had better results to show than cricket team but it gradually faded away. Is it Bollywood-cricket tie up? Granted the Hindi film industry has a hold over North and West India, but what made cricket no 1 in South and East India? 

 

Pakistan: Great in squash, held the world title for many decades. Produced an array of world class wrestlers and good boxers. In hockey they were the world's best in the 70s and 80s with magicians like Hasan Sardar and Shahbaz Ahmed Sr.....they won 4 hockey WCs, still a record !!! In the 90s-early 00s their hockey team produced better results than their cricket team yet hockey faced a slump while cricket grew in popularity. Now cricket is probably the solo sport in Pak. In India other sports are coming up but in Pak other sports are further fading away, moreover Pak doesn't have other major sources of entertainment like India.

 

Sri Lanka: Strong sprinters (Jayasinghe ), very good in rugby (almost qualified for the previous Rugby WC) , water sports and netball (till the late 90s they were top 5 in the world in this sport !!!).  Granted they aren't as cricket crazy as India-Pak but cricket still is no 1 here.

[Cricketics]

Easiest sport to play for even a lazy person. Because that's the only sport where sometimes you can make good money without dropping a sweat or without being lazy. In Cricket you can sometimes field all 50 overs and might not get a ball towards you and you might not break a sweat and then get to bat and make merry. It's easy to play even after being lazy. You can't do the same with soccer or tennis or rugby if you are lazy.

 

[speedheat]

Cricket is the most beautiful sport out of all other outdoor sports, it provides more verities and require more technical skills compare to others and unlike that overrated soccer in which ball mostly revolves around midfield and mostly ends up with dull 0-0 draws there is some thing happening every second or every ball of the game especially in t20s, unfortunately its too late for western world to understand the beauty of cricket now as football has already taken over their mind, I had interacted with old grandpa who is still a cricket enthusiasts who have been to spain, portugal, england about the issue with cricket and why it isn't popular among the western countries, the only answer he gave me is the test format with which cricket was introduced to those countries, yes the test format is the or one of the reason why It was rejected mostly by latin Americans and  Europeans, had there been a t20 format when cricket was taking its root back in 20th century we would have more than 10 top cricketing nation today at least I fee it, now imagine how would have all those countries felt when cricket was introduced to them 5 days of match tuk tuk all the day with stupid lunch break tea break toilet break in the middle and end result is what??? a dull draw lol, this is what I feel hope this beautiful game flourish in future cheers! 

 

 

 

[Vilander]

51 minutes ago, Gollum said:

I have interacted with a few Aussies and Brits and some of them knew very little about cricket. On the other hand in SC cricket is a religion. Why is it so and when did this happen? I can understand Bangladesh's love for the game because they suck in other sports and are in general an entertainment starved country but why India, Pakistan and Lanka? Many commonwealth countries are there but not all are cricket crazy, even in countries where cricket is a major sport it isn't such a big hit among the masses.

 

India: We had a champion team in football post independence, have won Asia Cup, finished 4th in Olympics and qualified for 1950 FIFA WC. Moreoever we have a strong club culture in Kolkata, Goa, Kerala etc, some of them having more than 150 years history. Similarly we were the greatest hockey team once upon a time with 8 Olympic Gold medals and the GOAT of hockey Major Dhyan Chand in our ranks. In tennis we had the likes of Ramanathan Krishnan and Vijay Amritraj who were top 20 in their time and made multiple singles semi finals winning over the likes of Laver, Rosewall, Newcombe, Roche, Connors, Ashe, Mcenroe, Bjorg etc...absolute heavyweights of the game. Over the years we have produced champions in badminton, kabaddi, chess, wrestling, shooting, archery, golf, boxing, weightlifting, volleyball, athletics, billiards/snooker etc. But no other sport has captures public imagination like cricket. By most estimates it was already our no 1 sport in the 60s when our cricket team was pants and our hockey/football teams were setting the world stage on fire. But even for those who say that 1983 WC changed the sporting scene I would like to know how it sustained public interest during the dark days of the 90s, even our field hockey team had better results to show than cricket team but it gradually faded away. Is it Bollywood-cricket tie up? Granted the Hindi film industry has a hold over North and West India, but what made cricket no 1 in South and East India? 

 

Pakistan: Great in squash, held the world title for many decades. Produced an array of world class wrestlers and good boxers. In hockey they were the world's best in the 70s and 80s with magicians like Hasan Sardar and Shahbaz Ahmed Sr.....they won 4 hockey WCs, still a record !!! In the 90s-early 00s their hockey team produced better results than their cricket team yet hockey faced a slump while cricket grew in popularity. Now cricket is probably the solo sport in Pak. In India other sports are coming up but in Pak other sports are further fading away, moreover Pak doesn't have other major sources of entertainment like India.

 

Sri Lanka: Strong sprinters (Jayasinghe ), very good in rugby (almost qualified for the previous Rugby WC) , water sports and netball (till the late 90s they were top 5 in the world in this sport !!!).  Granted they aren't as cricket crazy as India-Pak but cricket still is no 1 here.

What the f€?£ is desis ? we are not from same nation  In case of sl never even part of same country. 

[Gollum]

8 minutes ago, Vilander said:

What the f€?£ is desis ? we are not from same nation  In case of sl never even part of same country. 

Desis=South Asians

[rageaddict]

Have you ever wondered why the Aussies , Dutch and Germans  don't care about Field Hockey inspite of regularly winning Olympic medals in it? 

 

Australia field hockey team ke members ke baare main toh Australia main Kisiko Pata bhi nahi hai,  Ashes toh fir bhi Full house Stadium main khela jaata hai. 

[Rasgulla]

25 minutes ago, speedheat said:

Cricket is the most beautiful sport out of all other outdoor sports, it provides more verities and require more technical skills compare to others and unlike that overrated soccer in which ball mostly revolves around midfield and mostly ends up with dull 0-0 draws

Virgin bot v2 stick to lunge, tuk tuk that was written in your program...  software upgrade didn't do any favours to fix this useless bot.

[speedheat]

21 minutes ago, Rasgulla said:

Virgin bot v2 stick to lunge, tuk tuk that was written in your program...  software upgrade didn't do any favours to fix this useless bot.

 to be really honest that was intentionally written for you Bot, job done  happy new year Bot, hope you you upgrade your vocabulary this year.

[Gollum]

40 minutes ago, rageaddict said:

Have you ever wondered why the Aussies , Dutch and Germans  don't care about Field Hockey inspite of regularly winning Olympic medals in it? 

 

Australia field hockey team ke members ke baare main toh Australia main Kisiko Pata bhi nahi hai,  Ashes toh fir bhi Full house Stadium main khela jaata hai. 

Small correction, Dutch are crazy about their hockey teams. Question pertains to India, not X, Y,Z. Historically we have done better in other sports than cricket at some point of time, yet cricket rules the roost. For eg Australia, cricket is an integral part of their history, eg Ashes, Bradman, settlers etc. Like that any reason why India is so cricket crazy?

[Rasgulla]

9 minutes ago, speedheat said:

 to be really honest that was intentionally written for you Bot, job done  happy new year Bot, hope you you upgrade your vocabulary this year.

Virgin bot now has excuses.txt file on its HDD..   hopefully MTC ll add autotranslate add-on in next update. Looks like auto like has been removed in this new version. 

[surajmal]

Seeking approval from the brits. 

[NameGoesHere]

Why do South Americans go crazy about football?  

[Gollum]

6 minutes ago, NameGoesHere said:

Why do South Americans go crazy about football?  

Good question, can be asked in a South American football forum. 

[Laaloo]

Aur kuch kaam dhandha nahi hai isiliye

[NameGoesHere]

4 hours ago, Gollum said:

Good question, can be asked in a South American football forum. 

Your OP seemed to make so many implicit assumptions, it was a way of making my point.

Edited January 1, 2018 by NameGoesHere

[Vk1]

May be off topic but one thing that I have noticed is the media coverage of sports is completely British media like. It's like our national English media first checks what's in the mind of Britishers and reports the same to us. Local language media further cascades it to towns. This has gone to such a level that the public knows, list top players of formula one, EPL players  more than NBA or NFL. Perhaps most of the 80s media guys studied in British universities like Rajdeep.

[Stuge]

Well ,you don't need much to play cricket .Even an aluminium warp can be made into a ball and same can be used to play cricket inside  students classroom . That's what I use to do as a kid :)

[chewy]

media coverage,

despite relative recent success of Indian hockey, badminton, tennis, boxing, and even football team, they hardly get any news (unless you looking for it).

 

It speaks volume when Sania Mirza's popularity (national narrative) is more about her spouse despite her own sporting achievements and success. 

 

for example both India men and women hockey team are in ranked in top 10, but you will be hard pressed to find someone on the street to name one hockey player from either team. But after Indian women cricket team's recent success, and many of these cricketers get invited on national channels, entertainment shows (but of course rightly so). 

[Gollum]

3 hours ago, chewy said:

media coverage,

despite relative recent success of Indian hockey, badminton, tennis, boxing, and even football team, they hardly get any news (unless you looking for it).

 

It speaks volume when Sania Mirza's popularity (national narrative) is more about her spouse despite her own sporting achievements and success. 

 

for example both India men and women hockey team are in ranked in top 10, but you will be hard pressed to find someone on the street to name one hockey player from either team. But after Indian women cricket team's recent success, and many of these cricketers get invited on national channels, entertainment shows (but of course rightly so). 

But isn't this a recent development? Last 20-25 years or so?

 

Why was cricket more popular in the 60s and 70s when we were so much better in hockey and football?

[Lannister]

The promotion of other sports has lagged behind Cricket, even though some of them are more successful performance-wise. And also anyone would have played Cricket atleast once during their childhood, so this helps people in easily connecting with the sport. 

But I have to say many older generation fans I know have stopped watching it and the new kids are taking up other sports and are rarely interested in cricket. The dimension will eventually change 20-25 years down the line.