Is India the true home of cricket?
Indian fans need to embrace the World Cup in its totality, writes Boria Majumdar in the Times of India
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Indian fans need to embrace the World Cup in its totality, writes Boria Majumdar in the Times of India. Packing the stands for the India games alone is not enough, he says.
It is a given that the India matches will be played to packed stadiums. The real challenge is to fill up stadiums for the non-India matches. Only if there are sizeable crowds for these games can we claim to have matured as a cricket-watching nation. It is cricket's biggest stage and hyper-nationalism, central to Indian cricket-watching, cannot continue to be the sport's only selling point in India. Take the FIFA World Cup: not only were matches involving South Africa well-attended, but most matches were played to sizeable crowds across the country in June-July 2010.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo