Cricket and India

I pray to god that India lose the match tomorrow with SL. May be that would make cricket crazy India less crazy about cricket and balance the sport equation.
I think Cricket is Killing Indian Sport. You cannot grow other trees under a Banyan Tree. (jai bolo sdmbbs ki)

From Wiki,
The global media rights for international cricket to be held in India between March 2006 and March 2010 were awarded to production house Nimbus for a mind-boggling sum of US$612 Million. [1]. The rights to being the official kit sponsor for the duration of 5 years(1st January 2006 to 31st December,2010) were awarded to Nike for US$43 Million [2]. While Air Sahara earned the privilege of being the official Indian cricket team sponsor for a period of 4 years by shelling out US$70 Million [3]. The media rights for 25 neutral venue one-day matches to be played over the next 5 years were awarded to Zee Telefilms for US$219.15 Million [4]. Business Standard [5] reports that it will get another Rs 2,000 crore ($450 million) from the sale of other rights, including hotel, travel and ground sponsorship.

This is the money generated by the Indian cricket team (16 people)for BCCI (Imagine the worth of economy surrounding Indian Cricket). SO much money is being spent on so few people. It's unfair. I'd rather like more money to be pumped into the domestic cricket to make them interesting, high quality and passionate like all the American sports. BCCI should learn from NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB. Investing billions on 11 players fortune without any kind of accountability is ridiculous

National team is important. But what is the ultimate goal? what is the measure for the success of a sport? Why should winning at international venues and tournaments matter? The 20Th best player of the most watched sport with crores of rupees in a 1 billion country is a poor no name.

That is only one part of the story.
India cricket is not only eclipsing all other sports, but in effect making the indian youth lazy and lacking in fitness. The nature of the game is that, you can play the game for hours with out getting tired and much physical activity. compare that with the fitness required by soccer or basket ball or tennis, you got to be really fit and strong. We had players at the international level with pot bellies. India Media is so strong now, they can make anything happen. Look at the music industry now. They can build Indian sports from ground up. But they resort for easy money by sensationalizing what 11 players do. Take the money away from the unaccountable unprofessional BCCI and spread it across to the other sports and players.

It's chicken and egg problem. Indian Team should be out of the world cup and people spend money on other sports. Why would the sponsors spend money on something else, because people wouldn't sit idle. They watch something else if cricket is not interesting.

Other sports need players like Sania Mirza, who makes a better role model for she broke into the extremely competitive professionals sports arena, with no support from the system and continues to believe in herself with a go get it attitude. What Anand did to chess for India, she will probably do it for Tennis if she breaks into top10.

Hope the situation changes in the future and India have a great future in many more sports.