“The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity” - George Bernard Shaw

What potato is to vegetables is what cricket is to sports. Both are immensely popular and have benefits - if done right. Potatoes are typically served as chips or fries and take away the chance to get your share of greens. Cricket is served endlessly day and night and it takes away time from other sports we could be playing or watching.

Money game

The International Cricket Council earned $321.2 million from the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, compared to $105.1 million earned from the ICC World Twenty in 2010. ICC also got a Rs 45 crore tax exemption from the Indian government on a part of its World Cup income earned from India.

According to former Australian batsman Dean Jones, cricket is played by 10 nations with Test status and 35 associate countries, but India provides nearly 80 per cent of the world's cricket revenues. The Indian cricket board enjoys an exalted status due to its revenue contribution and it pays out millions as pensions to former players. The board plays its own game with the government. This year, the I-T department taxed the Indian Cricket Board around Rs 2,300 crore for a seven year period. The cricket board was fined Rs 52.24 for indulging in anti-competitive practices by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

Sticky Wicket

Even before one considers the contracts scam or the recent betting issue, one needs to look at the merit of the game and its impact on the population at large. The exalted status cricket holds in India has sort of precluded an aspiring person from considering any other sport. Who wants to play basketball or soccer any more? And when Olympics or other international sports events happen, the rhetoric of “nation of 1.2 billion with not even one gold” will makes it round and die when the next 20/20 or 2/2 cricket match happens.

While we want to look at China or US or Germany for economics or growth policies, why not look at them for their main strength – no cricket. Kids who could be playing Kabadi or practicing gymnastics are now watching cricket. Worse, they are staying up late and watching it. Even worse, they believe a sport is nothing more than entertainment, money and fame. Ideals such as team spirit and sportsmanship have no place along with loyalty, patriotism and dedication. Sadly also, the vocabulary of kids who follow cricket now includes match-fixing, betting, scandal and bribing.

Game Over

Fans had lived through the boredom of test cricket, the disappointment of match cancellations due to rain, the agony of watching cricketers playing for their selfish ends rather than for the team and the crass commercialization of the sport. If the recent betting business does not make the fans say enough is enough, there is really no hope for the future of sports in the country.

Anything that involves money brings with it fraud. Be it stock market, chit-funds, sports or even Ashrams. The more the potential for quick money in the future, the higher is the chance of speculation and crime. We have let a lot of our institutions - starting from the government - lay waste as a result of corruption. Should we let our sports also go the same way? We should declare game over for cricket and do what a good financial adviser would do. Instead of betting all our time and money on one sport, we must go for a diversified portfolio of sports and balance our risks and rewards.

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