Dear Editor,
Now that the T20I World Cup is over, can we look back and say that it was a success? Did the ICC achieve what they wanted when they named West Indies and USA as co-hosts? Why were so many of the stadiums well short of a full house? After all, T20 is the most popular format and we see most stadiums packed to capacity for CPL matches.
I always thought that the idea of scheduling the World Cup in different countries was so that the fans in those countries can experience the joy of having it in their backyard and perhaps, as in the case of the USA, help spread the game. T/20 cricket is the shortest format of the game and a typical match is supposed to be finished within 3 to 3 ½ hours. One may attend a match after work, say 6 PM, and be home before midnight and still be able to get up and go to work the next morning.
Yet, we saw half the matches, including all the matches involving India, perhaps the biggest draw of all the teams, being scheduled at 10:30 AM. This of course, benefits the audience in India and brings in more money for the ICC. In addition, both India and Pakistan had all their 1st round matches in the USA, where ticket prices were much higher than those in the Caribbean and with the large Indian and Pakistani diaspora, the matches were basically guaranteed sell outs.
This scheduling was in my opinion, not only short-sighted, but a detriment to growing the game. You will never see the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS or even the NCAA, scheduling games at 10:30 AM and this is in a sports mad country with the richest and most professional sports teams in the world. If the main objective of the ICC is to get as much money as possible by pleasing the BCCI, then they should really consider scheduling all ICC tournaments in India. They have already pretty much killed Test Cricket by hardly scheduling any matches outside of the big three, i.e., India, Australia and England.
Some teams like the West Indies will be lucky to play five Test matches in a year. Others like Ireland, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, maybe two or three at the most. So, India won the WC and it was certainly a success for them. Afghanistan certainly made themselves and their countrymen happy, at least for a while. The ICC made a lot of money, so it must be successful to them. As for Cricket, well, I am old school and like the great Michael Holding, I really don’t believe that T20 is real cricket anyway.
Sincerely,
Mohamed Z. Rahaman
(Breado)
Laurel, Maryland