Cricket’s Superpowers - an interesting essay!

[mcgillianaire]

"The rivalry in international cricket that counts at present is the one between Australia and India. If this were geopolitics, then Australia would be the United States, the one unquestioned superpower for over a decade, used to getting their own way ever since they saw off their rival superpower, the West Indies, in the early 1990s (the West Indian cricket team, like the Russian state, now seems to be in a condition of permanent and rather squalid decline).

India, meanwhile, would be China, the superpower of the future, with all the resources needed to beat the Australians at their own game – the manpower, the talent, the raw nationalist passion – so long as a way can be found by their often corrupt and incompetent administrators of harnessing these obvious advantages. And England? England would be the EU: once the centre of the world, but currently engaged in an urgent and not always pretty attempt to modernise in order not to get left behind."

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Comments

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

That essay meandered a bit.

The rivalry in international cricket that counts at present is the one between Australia and India.
I read what he wrote after this, but I still don't understand why he says this. England will definitely be in the top two teams in the world for quite a while to come. Australia and India might. India still hasn't won many away test series, despite the 1-1 draw against a weakened Australia a couple of summers ago.

He massively underestimates England.

His points about the future popularity of test cricket are mostly valid. However:
When India beat Australia in their epic three-test encounter of 2001, the visitors then stayed on for a five-match series of one-day games, which threatened to overshadow what had gone before (especially since India lost 3-2), and gives a good sense of where the Indian administrators’ priorities lie.
Firstly, no-one else can remember who won the one-day series in 2001. Secondly, we always have the one-dayers after the tests in Australia, and this says nothing at all about our priorities.

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

India's away test series wins since 1932, ignoring Bangladesh and Zimbabwe:

New Zealand 67/8
West Indies 70/1
England 71
England 86
Sri Lanka 93/4
Pakistan 03/4

This is not the stuff of half of cricket's greatest rivalry.

Compare England since 2000:
Pakistan 00/1
Sri Lanka 00/1
West Indies 03/4
South Africa 04/5

And for completeness, Australia since 2000:
New Zealand 99/00
England 01
South Africa 01/2
West Indies 02/3
Sri Lanka 03/4
India 04/5
New Zealand 04/5

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Yeh, I think a stat which I read the other day which really shocked me is the fact India had won only a total of like 16 or 19 Tests abroad between 1932-2000 but after Ganguly became captain we've won 11 or 12 abroad.

But yeh, our record abroad is absolutely abysmal overall. I think if one takes into account the fact that most of the money, and its huge population-base of support lies in India, followed by Australia then that's the only way he could explain the first sentence.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

That essay meandered a bit.
Heh, must've been like reading something I would've written. :)

I agree with all your points... but it's always nice to read stuff which isn't exactly true but sounds good.