Cricket and the city

ESPNcricifo Idea Dream Fields, an initiative in association with Idea Cellular, is an attempt to explore cricket in the cities in India.

Since the mid-1990s, India has witnessed the rise of cricket talent from the non-traditional cricket centres. The talent that is making the cut at the national level is not necessarily from the conventional urban centres - the city centres like Mumbai, Bangalore or Chennai that have made a name for themselves as India's cricketing powerhouses. These city centres are no more the epicentres of cricket talent. Along with globalisation offering more choices to the city folks and the change in the lifestyle, one prominent reason for the decline of the city centres has been the fast vanishing open spaces in the urban landscape. City kids today don't seem to enjoy the luxury of more, the previously familiar, informal initiation to the game in the neighbourhood. And that, invariably, has robbed us of many a cricket stars.

The game of cricket has grown to unprecedented levels over the last decade in the country. There has never been any doubt about the popularity and fervour for the sport since the 1980s, but in the last ten years or so, success in the game has begun to represent glamour and wealth in the game. The financial growth of both the game and the country has put India in the unique position of being the cricket capital of the world.

As part of this initiative we will explore the changes that the game has gone through in the cities in India, and evaluate the challenges for the game at the grassroots. We will speak to the stakeholders involved to explore the ground reality in the old heartlands of Indian cricket.

We hope you will join us during this journey, with your thoughts and ideas about how cricket in your city can be better, for you and the generation to come.