If Cricket was more popular in these countries. [Hypothetical]

[maniac]

2 minutes ago, BlueBlood said:

This hypothetical is hilarious.

 

Afghanistan team is perfect example where they are already on par with SL, BD and other similar level teams.

 

If they had more money and infrastructure support, they would have been top 3 by now.

 

Just imagine Germany, US, Argentina, Brazil and even some of the smaller baseball heavy nations like Japan, Dominican Republic etc.

 

Those guys would have brought incredible new innovative game plays. Just look at the shoulders of some of these baseball players and American football players... The only ones who even come close are the Aussies and England.

 

It would change the game dramatically. A country like US would produce players like Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen, Kallis type tall, athletic freaks who will be all-rounders. I don't think any sub continental team would even stand a chance as the immigration policies don't allow importing better players.

 

It's insane to say Indian team would even be in top 5. I would say Indian team would be the level of BD way behind.

that’s exaggerating, we will be a mid-tier like we are in hockey. Sometimes top 3-5 when we do well but in the top strong teams but not the best. Yes SL, BD, Pak, Afghan teams chance of fluking an Olympic  medal will be over. We are experts in getting bronze and silver :)

[Lord]

11 minutes ago, BlueBlood said:

This hypothetical is hilarious.

 

Afghanistan team is perfect example where they are already on par with SL, BD and other similar level teams.

 

If they had more money and infrastructure support, they would have been top 3 by now.

 

Just imagine Germany, US, Argentina, Brazil and even some of the smaller baseball heavy nations like Japan, Dominican Republic etc.

 

Those guys would have brought incredible new innovative game plays. Just look at the shoulders of some of these baseball players and American football players... The only ones who even come close are the Aussies and England.

 

It would change the game dramatically. A country like US would produce players like Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen, Kallis type tall, athletic freaks who will be all-rounders. I don't think any sub continental team would even stand a chance as the immigration policies don't allow importing better players.

 

It's insane to say Indian team would even be in top 5. I would say Indian team would be the level of BD way behind.

 

WI players have those big shoulders, yet don't even qualify now.

 

Cricket is still a skill based sport.

[BlueBlood]

4 minutes ago, Lord said:

 

WI players have those big shoulders, yet don't even qualify now.

 

Cricket is still a skill based sport.

 

Issue with WI is that they have lost interest in Cricket due to poor adminstration and most of them want to play T20/T10 leagues.

 

There's a reason they dominated the sport for so long with Clive Lloyd etc.

 

When your best player is a Craig Brathwaite who is a tuk tuk batsman, you know how bad it has gotten.

 

Check someone like Chris Gayle in his prime. Can't compare to any Indian batsman.

 

Cricket is just like any other sport where fitness matters no matter how much Indian fans say otherwise.

 

There's a reason why Venkatesh Prasad or Bhuvi type of bowlers succeed while there never will be a Morne Morkel type bowler.

 

It's part genetics, part skill and part athletics.

 

This is why even though Kohli is supremely fit he just isn't the same anymore. But I would bet on the same athletic freak Kohli in 2016. No one could match him.

[the don]

27 minutes ago, maniac said:

that’s exaggerating, we will be a mid-tier like we are in hockey. Sometimes top 3-5 when we do well but in the top strong teams but not the best. Yes SL, BD, Pak, Afghan teams chance of fluking an Olympic  medal will be over. We are experts in getting bronze and silver :)

Pak will be a better t20 team than india in the long run, the t20 circuit has started tapping into grassroots and tape ball. 

[Strangering]

USA would change the the sport as we know it in terms of performance. Even the American 6th string athletes would smoke most of the Cricketers besides a few Australians. 

 

 

[Gollum]

1 hour ago, maniac said:

Cricket is going to be an Olympic sport, so even if they are popular or not in their country:  China,USA, Russia etc will start focusing on this more to further reduce subcontinent teams medal chances. Once they see Pak, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Afghan or to a much lesser extent India get free Olympic medals, they will take it seriously and then watch us be happy with bronze instead of complaining about why we lose finals and semis

Not wise to invest in team sports if your target is Olympic medal. Too much investment needed for a couple of medals.......with the same amount they can fund 20-30 individual athletes who are top medal prospects. That's why China is bad at team sports (no chance at cricket), they invested a lot in sports but only for Olympics glory, team sports need to develop organically, need good club/domestic culture etc. 

 

USA has other problems, they will never accept cricket because baseball is their sport, chosen to defy their erstwhile colonial masters from across the Atlantic,....they'd never cede superiority to an English sport especially now that baseball has grown so much and has so much financial clout. They develop their own sports and their best talents go there, hence American Football over rugby, baseball over cricket, ice hockey over field hockey (anyway lacrosse is for their rich kids, like how cricket is for English elites), they never gave a damn about football despite it being the most popular sport on this planet (for long time it was even considered as a girl's sport much like how field hockey is viewed there today).....Aus has a similar issue where they have developed AFL which attracts all their main talents, they care very little about rugby, just look at AFL vs NRL.

 

Russia is a non-factor because of climate, cricket can never be played in Russia or the Scandinavian countries unless it goes indoor and that's never going to happen. 

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Gollum

[Gollum]

Best talents from USA go to NFL, best talents from Aus go to AFL (cricket will be 4th or 5th in terms of preference despite its popularity there)....those sports aren't even played at international level.

 

So many other sports where America's (applies to most western nations) best athletes venture out, like basketball, ice hockey, baseball, combat sports, tennis...sports with much higher financial incentives. Their elites will prefer rowing, sailing, golf, motorsports, equestrian, fencing, polo....also NCAA scholarships will attract wrestlers, track and field athletes etc. Who cares about cricket? Only in SC do our best talents choose cricket, because of its undeserved popularity, glamour, $$....and still we suck at it lmao. I am sure we just aren't meant to play cricket, neither are we good at it, nor do we understand it.

[BacktoCricaddict]

1 minute ago, Gollum said:

Best talents from USA go to NFL,

Or the NBA. It takes a different set of skills.

[Gollum]

If USA applies its mind to be really good at cricket, within 20 years they can make ATG WI/Aus look like modern Bangladesh team, guarantee. In terms of sporting culture (and genetic advantage),  they are better than most developed countries....comparable to Australia or perhaps Germany/NZ....but with almost 20 times the population of Aus. Now add in the fact that they are a technological superpower and will incorporate science into sports unlike any other country (like they did with design of their swimsuits which later on led to its ban)....they will bring revolutionary changes in cricket training, diet, recovery, data analytics etc. Then there is the immigration thing and nobody attracts top tier talent like USA....heck in chess their top 4 players have been poached from Italy (Caruana), Philippines (So), Armenia (Aronian), Dominguez (Cuba) and they poached them after those national feds had developed them for 20-30 years....such is the lure for Uncle Sam...ironically their 5th best chess player Hikaru Nakamura was born in Osaka (Japan) but to be fair, the US federation groomed him to become the player he is today. No reason why they can't do the same in cricket in a manner beyond Eng or NZ's wildest imagination. All the best cricket coaches, fitness trainers, pitch curators etc will flock to USA....

 

I mean in chess, nobody associates USA with it....but even if you forget this generation of poached players, USA still produced two GOAT contenders in Morphy and Fischer, then Rueben Fine, Reshevsky and so many other greats especially Jewish ones from NYC !!!!! When the gauntlet was thrown at them at the peak of cold war they produced Bobby Fischer and beat the Soviets in ice hockey to get an Olympic gold (Miracle on Ice). I mean come on we are talking about the greatest country in the history of planet Earth.....and to those delusional folks thinking India will be top 3 even if other western nations take it seriously, just wake up to reality guys. If cricket has 50% of the global popularity as football, higher chance that Indian cricket team will match Indian football team ranking/status than being anywhere close to top 20 (top 3 lmao)....apni aukaat samjho aur chup chaap baitho. If USA wakes up and chooses cricket like they do with NFL now, every college there will have a player like Kohli or Bumrah. It is a mercy to the rest of the world that Olympics has strict national quotas, otherwise even China will kiss USA's rear, I'll go a step further and add that remove country quota but allow just NCAA participation, USA will top the table, you folks don't realize the might of that country, think Australia but 100 times scarier because of other factors. 

[Gollum]

58 minutes ago, Strangering said:

USA would change the the sport as we know it in terms of performance. Even the American 6th string athletes would smoke most of the Cricketers besides a few Australians. 

India despite being the superpower of cricket (financial only) has made zero innovations in the sport. Look at all the wonderful tech, spider cam, bowling machine, Hawkeye, hotspot, T20 cricket, pink ball, earlier white ball, D/N, coloured clothing, sab Eng aur Aus ka hai. Heck Pakistanis brought in doosra, reverse swing....Lankans came up with carrom ball and the revolution in ODIs in 1996 WC. What have Indians ever invented in the sport...except Ranji's flick shot which again he did in England working with his English trainer. Heck our boys play 2000s style ODI cricket even today, and zero innovative strokes by our mahaan batsmen (except SKY), they don't even sweep or reverse sweep which goras used to do 20 *ing years back. Look at our cricket coverage (cringe overload, tacky, just like recent WC with Kohli chalisa 24x7), quality of our commentators/experts/media/social media/administrators, or the unbelievable fact that we have yet to produce a world class umpire since Venkat's retirement. Even with cricket specific injuries we depend on doctors in London and NY. What do we have to offer except population and a rabid fanbase?

 

USA would indeed change the sport in a revolutionary way. I mean if they bring science/tech to cricket like they do in other sports, cricket will never be the same. Russians used to boast so much about their chess prowess, first Fischer humbled them but then the scientific miracle of Deep Blue, a computer which beat the then GOAT Kasparov, way back in 1996. And today chess engines rule the roost. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Gollum

[maniac]

1 hour ago, the don said:

Pak will be a better t20 team than india in the long run, the t20 circuit has started tapping into grassroots and tape ball. 

Don’t want to make this an Ind-Pak thing but Pak has raw talent at the grassroots level  no doubt . However once it becomes an Olympic sport, Pak can’t  keep up with the rest of the world. In terms of craze for

cirkcet Pak is only no.2 to India but while it does punch above its weight once in a while, it’s a mid tier team and the board is nearly bankrupt.you expect them to start winning gold medals easily?. Maybe the first 2-3 Olympics Pak will have a legit shot at winning something but after that they will be made irrrelavant. Our hockey and other sports like wrestling, boxing, badminton have improved due to infrastructure, honest & passionate people and talent. Pak lacks 2 out of those 3 things. Figure it out.

 

Pak couldn’t keep up in hockey or squash and cricket will go the same way. Right now the quality and quantity is so low that Pak cricket looks better than it is.

[maniac]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

Not wise to invest in team sports if your target is Olympic medal. Too much investment needed for a couple of medals.......with the same amount they can fund 20-30 individual athletes who are top medal prospects. That's why China is bad at team sports (no chance at cricket), they invested a lot in sports but only for Olympics glory, team sports need to develop organically, need good club/domestic culture etc. 

 

USA has other problems, they will never accept cricket because baseball is their sport, chosen to defy their erstwhile colonial masters from across the Atlantic,....they'd never cede superiority to an English sport especially now that baseball has grown so much and has so much financial clout. They develop their own sports and their best talents go there, hence American Football over rugby, baseball over cricket, ice hockey over field hockey (anyway lacrosse is for their rich kids, like how cricket is for English elites), they never gave a damn about football despite it being the most popular sport on this planet (for long time it was even considered as a girl's sport much like how field hockey is viewed there today).....Aus has a similar issue where they have developed AFL which attracts all their main talents, they care very little about rugby, just look at AFL vs NRL.

 

Russia is a non-factor because of climate, cricket can never be played in Russia or the Scandinavian countries unless it goes indoor and that's never going to happen. 

 

bro the point is China, America have money but doesn’t mean they throw it around if it doesn’t benefit. They are very responsible with money . Right now they don’t spend money on cricket because it is a waste for them and they don’t get anything out of it. So while they might not see overnight results but they will have have a initiative with it being an Olympic sport  to throw money around to improve their game and have better scouting, while it may not yield the overnight results but who knows, the competition and quality in cricket is so minimum. They will atleast get more serious funding is the point I am making and they can hire better resources.

Edited December 12, 2023 by maniac

[Gollum]

8 minutes ago, maniac said:

bro the point is China, America have money but doesn’t mean they throw it around if it doesn’t benefit. They are very responsible with money . Right now they don’t spend money on cricket because it is a waste for them and they don’t get anything out of it. So while they might not see overnight results but they will have have a initiative with it being an Olympic sport  to throw money around to improve their game and have better scouting, while it may not yield the overnight results but who knows, the competition and quality in cricket is so minimum. They will atleast get more serious funding is the point I am making and they can hire better resources.

But they could have done that in hockey as well, no? It has been an Olympic sport for the last 100 years, and USA/China have genuine talent/quality in their women ranks....and some connection in the distant past. 

[Gollum]

2 hours ago, the don said:

Pak will be a better t20 team than india in the long run, the t20 circuit has started tapping into grassroots and tape ball. 

Sports is a byproduct of society, economy, politics. Pak was better than India in 80s, 90s but you got to remember Pak was comfortably richer than socialist India as well back then, with better infrastructure, openness to West, more open/liberal worldview compared to today (that advantage carried over till early/mid 2000s). You had an administrator like Nur Khan then, sure dictatorship then was an issue but at least there was some stability...patronage/support of Uncle Sam, economic wellbeing helped. 

 

Dunno how things will shape up in coming years but at least in near future your economy won't be in good shape and because of that, political problems will be exacerbated. Sports is usually the last priority for any country, upar se tap band ho jaye toh no matter how much talent you have, it won't reach full potential. Or Pak players may become more vulnerable to poaching by Eng, NZ etc.....they themselves may seek out greener pastures.

 

I still believe PCB is much better than BCCI, yes Pak has grassroots talent....but whether it will materialize is the question. In India's case it is much easier to turn the fortunes around, just need a few competent people running BCCI and some psychological adjustment in the cricket setup...infrastructure/facilities will only get better with time and that is the main prerequisite to sporting success. I say all this despite being a pessimist, despite being fed up of Indian cricket. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Gollum

[Gollum]

2 hours ago, BlueBlood said:

 

Issue with WI is that they have lost interest in Cricket due to poor adminstration and most of them want to play T20/T10 leagues.

Also they identify closer with Americans now.....earlier they were closer to British because of colonial legacy, now they follow the trail of money, better opportunities and of course proximity plays a role. Don't remember who it was, some gora commentator commentating in a match in WI, when asked about decline in WI cricket, he said when he was a player WI cars had steering wheel on the right (like they have in Britain, Australia, NZ, Ind, Pak etc), now when he has returned as commentator after many years they have steering wheel on the left...that was a nice way to explain!!!!!

 

Pretty sure many NBA, NFL, MLB stars will be naturalized US citizens, origin from the Caribbean. Even in track/field, USA is importing many sprinters from the island countries.....or maybe the islanders are going to USA for better opportunities. I keep a close eye on NCAA competitions...international student athletes in USA have disproportionate representation from Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados etc....even if those kids don't end up as elite athletes, the employment opportunities with college degrees are worth it....remember West Indies economy is basically agriculture (large plantations of cash crops like sugar, coffee, banana....no fragmentation, not very labor intensive) plus tourism, this generation of West Indians will obviously prefer landing skill based jobs and what better place to be than USA? 

 

Barbados has a population of 2.8 lakhs now, less than a random ass suburb in one of our metros. 

All time Barbados XI will have Greenidge, Haynes, Worrell, Weekes, Walcott, Sobers, Hunte, Marshall, Garner, Griffith, Hall...most of them played at the same time. 

Antigua population 93k, players: Viv, Ambrose, Andy Roberts, Richie Richardson

Their Indianized Guyana produced Lloyd, Kanhai, Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Kallicharan, Hooper, Lance Gibbs, Croft etc.....population 7.9 lakhs.

Now add Trinidad Tobago, Jamaica etc.

It isn't possible any other way for a team to go from this to what they currently dish out. 

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Gollum

[the don]

56 minutes ago, maniac said:

bro the point is China, America have money but doesn’t mean they throw it around if it doesn’t benefit. They are very responsible with money . Right now they don’t spend money on cricket because it is a waste for them and they don’t get anything out of it. So while they might not see overnight results but they will have have a initiative with it being an Olympic sport  to throw money around to improve their game and have better scouting, while it may not yield the overnight results but who knows, the competition and quality in cricket is so minimum. They will atleast get more serious funding is the point I am making and they can hire better resources.

Oh absolutely

 

59 minutes ago, maniac said:

Don’t want to make this an Ind-Pak thing but Pak has raw talent at the grassroots level  no doubt . However once it becomes an Olympic sport, Pak can’t  keep up with the rest of the world. In terms of craze for

cirkcet Pak is only no.2 to India but while it does punch above its weight once in a while, it’s a mid tier team and the board is nearly bankrupt.you expect them to start winning gold medals easily?. Maybe the first 2-3 Olympics Pak will have a legit shot at winning something but after that they will be made irrrelavant. Our hockey and other sports like wrestling, boxing, badminton have improved due to infrastructure, honest & passionate people and talent. Pak lacks 2 out of those 3 things. Figure it out.

 

Pak couldn’t keep up in hockey or squash and cricket will go the same way. Right now the quality and quantity is so low that Pak cricket looks better than it is.

no no pak wont be winning any gold medals if these other countries start taking cricket seriously and with as much passion as India but my point is neither would india and i dont expect india to keep up either especially in a more raw form of the game like t20.

[the don]

39 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Sports is a byproduct of society, economy, politics. Pak was better than India in 80s, 90s but you got to remember Pak was comfortably richer than socialist India as well back then, with better infrastructure, openness to West, more open/liberal worldview compared to today (that advantage carried over till early/mid 2000s). You had an administrator like Nur Khan then, sure dictatorship then was an issue but at least there was some stability...patronage/support of Uncle Sam, economic wellbeing helped. 

 

Dunno how things will shape up in coming years but at least in near future your economy won't be in good shape and because of that, political problems will be exacerbated. Sports is usually the last priority for any country, upar se tap band ho jaye toh no matter how much talent you have, it won't reach full potential. Or Pak players may become more vulnerable to poaching by Eng, NZ etc.....they themselves may seek out greener pastures.

 

I still believe PCB is much better than BCCI, yes Pak has grassroots talent....but whether it will materialize is the question. In India's case it is much easier to turn the fortunes around, just need a few competent people running BCCI and some psychological adjustment in the cricket setup...infrastructure/facilities will only get better with time and that is the main prerequisite to sporting success. I say all this despite being a pessimist, despite being fed up of Indian cricket. 

Agreed but Knowing pak society and the grassroots i just feel t20 is the one format where they will always keep up with India or even be better no matter where the economy goes, because the cricket economy will remain strongish relatively. In the longer formats India would need mismanagement of epic proportions to let Pak become a consistently stronger side. The system and the pool of players should never let that happen.

[harpicP]

5 hours ago, Strangering said:

USA would change the the sport as we know it in terms of performance. Even the American 6th string athletes would smoke most of the Cricketers besides a few Australians. 

 

 

It also helps when USA steal all the best imports from elsewhere and have access to best steroids. Give other nations the same medically advanced peds and see what happens.

[harpicP]

5 hours ago, Gollum said:

Best talents from USA go to NFL, best talents from Aus go to AFL (cricket will be 4th or 5th in terms of preference despite its popularity there)....those sports aren't even played at international level.

 

So many other sports where America's (applies to most western nations) best athletes venture out, like basketball, ice hockey, baseball, combat sports, tennis...sports with much higher financial incentives. Their elites will prefer rowing, sailing, golf, motorsports, equestrian, fencing, polo....also NCAA scholarships will attract wrestlers, track and field athletes etc. Who cares about cricket? Only in SC do our best talents choose cricket, because of its undeserved popularity, glamour, $$....and still we suck at it lmao. I am sure we just aren't meant to play cricket, neither are we good at it, nor do we understand it.

Agree with the most part, but combat sports on average pays rubbish. Boxing ufc there is not much money in it apart from a few top stars. 

 

 

[harpicP]

5 hours ago, Gollum said:

If USA applies its mind to be really good at cricket, within 20 years they can make ATG WI/Aus look like modern Bangladesh team, guarantee. In terms of sporting culture (and genetic advantage),  they are better than most developed countries....comparable to Australia or perhaps Germany/NZ....but with almost 20 times the population of Aus. Now add in the fact that they are a technological superpower and will incorporate science into sports unlike any other country (like they did with design of their swimsuits which later on led to its ban)....they will bring revolutionary changes in cricket training, diet, recovery, data analytics etc. Then there is the immigration thing and nobody attracts top tier talent like USA....heck in chess their top 4 players have been poached from Italy (Caruana), Philippines (So), Armenia (Aronian), Dominguez (Cuba) and they poached them after those national feds had developed them for 20-30 years....such is the lure for Uncle Sam...ironically their 5th best chess player Hikaru Nakamura was born in Osaka (Japan) but to be fair, the US federation groomed him to become the player he is today. No reason why they can't do the same in cricket in a manner beyond Eng or NZ's wildest imagination. All the best cricket coaches, fitness trainers, pitch curators etc will flock to USA....

 

I mean in chess, nobody associates USA with it....but even if you forget this generation of poached players, USA still produced two GOAT contenders in Morphy and Fischer, then Rueben Fine, Reshevsky and so many other greats especially Jewish ones from NYC !!!!! When the gauntlet was thrown at them at the peak of cold war they produced Bobby Fischer and beat the Soviets in ice hockey to get an Olympic gold (Miracle on Ice). I mean come on we are talking about the greatest country in the history of planet Earth.....and to those delusional folks thinking India will be top 3 even if other western nations take it seriously, just wake up to reality guys. If cricket has 50% of the global popularity as football, higher chance that Indian cricket team will match Indian football team ranking/status than being anywhere close to top 20 (top 3 lmao)....apni aukaat samjho aur chup chaap baitho. If USA wakes up and chooses cricket like they do with NFL now, every college there will have a player like Kohli or Bumrah. It is a mercy to the rest of the world that Olympics has strict national quotas, otherwise even China will kiss USA's rear, I'll go a step further and add that remove country quota but allow just NCAA participation, USA will top the table, you folks don't realize the might of that country, think Australia but 100 times scarier because of other factors. 

India would be a top side purely due to huge talent pool assuming we pick based in merit. 

 

USA only dominates given they have unlitimited resources, huge backing, best school system to develop athletes, best steroids etc. 

 

Give other nations half of what they have access too and they would never be as dominant. Most of their top players in almost every sport come from other nations outside USA. Ethnicity of the top athletes ar eusually European. 

 

Anyway they can do all this. They can take all kinds of steroids they want to and they would still lose to India in India in tests.