Are Indians the new Seppos?

Seriously, turned on the telly this morning to catch a bit of the deciding day of the deciding test between two of the best teams in the world and a chance for the hosts to beat Australia and there's hardly anybody there!!!!

Does this mean Indians have the attention span of Seppos for sport these days? Just like their junk T20 cricket and little else...?

err it's a Monday, a workin day for most of us poor folk who struggle to make two ends meet.

Unlike their lucky pirateer English couterparts who can wear knickers and suspenders and wigs to a day out in the sun on pretext of watching Kroicket.

*Buckaroo* wrote:err it's a Monday, a workin day for most of us poor folk who struggle to make two ends meet.

Unlike their lucky pirateer English couterparts who can wear knickers and suspenders and wigs to a day out in the sun on pretext of watching Kroicket.

Racist

a few reasons

1. new ground in nagpur is 45 minutes away from the city in the middle of nowhere
2. nagpur is not a big city
3. its a monday
4. tickets for this match were only sold for all 5 days. most people couldnt afford to buy a 5 day pass

unsurprisingly the largest crowds were in delhi. there would be millions watching it on tv anyways. live cricket coverage in india reaches every single household, so most prefer that over paying money to sitting in uncovered stands

odi cricket though is much more popular here, esp day-night. you can expect full-houses during the test match in bombay on the weekend. i'll certainly be there

DJ_Smerk wrote:


Racist

eww .. doesn't stick.

tough luck

Get ****** Buckaroo.

JKL, it's not difficult to explain. Lousy lousy ground facilities, freaking nightmare getting from and to the game, much easier to get together with friends and see it on TV, and of course increased interest in ODIs and T 20s.

furriner wrote:Get ****** Buckaroo.

trembling .. at the thought of stuff furri can do to me.

furriner wrote:Get ****** Buckaroo.

JKL, it's not difficult to explain. Lousy lousy ground facilities, freaking nightmare getting from and to the game, much easier to get together with friends and see it on TV, and of course increased interest in ODIs and T 20s.

Sounds a bit like an excuse when the IPL & ODI's don't suffer the same fate for those reasons....

JKLever wrote:

furriner wrote:Get ****** Buckaroo.

JKL, it's not difficult to explain. Lousy lousy ground facilities, freaking nightmare getting from and to the game, much easier to get together with friends and see it on TV, and of course increased interest in ODIs and T 20s.

Sounds a bit like an excuse when the IPL & ODI's don't suffer the same fate for those reasons....

apples and oranges, esp if you are comparing to today's play at the vca

besides, odis and t20s are definitely more popular here for the ticket paying public, no question about it

The 5 day pass thing is a fu*king disgrace quite frankly. Wouldn't surprise me if it's a move by the BCCI so they can justify themselves in saying "Look! Test cricket isn't popular! We need more 20/20!".

The 5 day pass thing is a fu*king disgrace quite frankly.

Indeed.

Ban India.

Despite all the excuses traded above test Cricket is nowhere near what it used to be in terms of popularity stakes in India.

Another example of this is that the national radio broadcaster only covers the shorter version these days. No sponsors for tests.

Hard to imagine what the crowds would be like for say Inda V NZ or WI.

All the revenus comes from TV so they should make the stadium tickets dirt cheap, fill them up and subsidise the local associations more. Surely the players don't want a play in front of empty stands.

Coming out of centuries of invasions and colonialism Cricket was also seen an easy vehicle to put India on the World map (commonwealth map really !). Now that there are more avenues to get nationalistic about. This development in itself is not a bad thing since it will get the administrators to up their game.

The Stadium in Nagpur is one of the best in India and it is a very big ground compared to some of the otherones where top edges can fly for a six.

Something the BCCI should look at is the 'peace deal' Packer and the Aus Cricket Board signed after WSC.

It's a little known fact that Packer received a slice of the pie from every ticket sold. He realised that it was in his best interests to have the matches he televised played in front of live crowds.

Apart from the ridiculous five day ticket thing (I mean, come on, not even Ricky Ponting could think up something that dumb)...

The biggest thing that affected crowds this series was playing the tests outside the traditional test match centres.

None of the big three, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta hosted a match. Can you imagine Australia hosting the equivalent series and not playing matches in Sydney or Melbourne? Imagine the Border-Gavaskar Trophy being played in Hobart, Cairns, Darwin and Canberra. They just wouldn't do it.

It seems to me that outside Australia and England little thought is given to Test match cricket. The schedules are just drawn up on a whim with little planning. Perhaps it's a conspiracy to kill off the game from the inside. I hope that last point is just a case of my cynicism getting the better of me.