Darren Sammy portrayed himself to be most relived man in
world today after his team avoided a defeat at the hands of Indians in the
third test which was a dead rubber. None would have expected such a finish on
the final day after what was dished out on the first four, but that is test
cricket as experts would say -where every session is important. The captain of
the team which had scored close to 600 runs and had a healthy lead of more than
100 during his post-match presentation said this was great advertisement for
game of cricket and which was agreed by many people who would have watched he
turn of events through this test.
Great advertisement- was it? No! I would never call this
match a great advertisement to the game, instead I would like to point out that
the West Indian team is not a worthy opponent against whom we could expect
thrilling matches, they despite having first innings lead twice in this series
have let their opponent crawl back and secure the series 2-0.Media and cricket
board sponsored commentators through their repeated expert view can create a
pseudo feeling of greatness about these kinds of matches and sell the game.
Analyzing the history of any competitive sports would point
to us that no nation can dominate any popular competitive sport for lengthy time,
the decline of one nation has seen the rise of set of other nations which would
have enabled that sport to move forward in terms of competitiveness which in
turn would increase the passion among fans and thus increasing the popularity.
Unfortunately for cricket no new nations have taken the mantle from leaders
like West Indies and Australia in moving the game forward. Had countries like
Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Netherland, Kenya, and Scotland put a strong team which
they have failed to do, we wouldn’t have seen a year like this where teams like
India and England had to play back to back series against each other. Money
generated today have neither being used properly in expanding the game in newer
countries nor have it been used to expand the infrastructure of existing
nations.
Fatigue and boredom has set amongst the fans watching
meaningless series being played by the same set of nations. Excitement would be
temporary with small tweaks of changes like introduction of power play in one
day games or bowling with different set of balls from two ends, day and night
test and test championship which has been proposed would ignite the interest
amongst fans for quite a while but cannot sustain the interest unless we see
development of game in more nations with the funds being generated today.
Boards would not require advertising the game when we see more nations with
equal strength competing against each other nor back to back series in the same
year.
