[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by bharat
Well I am not arguing on the point that people *will* come to watch a BD-Zim match .Within a format there will be disparity .I am talking about across formats !!

its true this is essentially an argument of format 2 vs format 3.

in your earlier post, you quite unequivocally stated that a BD-ZIM match (format unspecified) would be heavily attended in india. i say that it won't regardless of format and it appears as though you are now agreeing.

now you are saying that there will NOT be disparity across formats, and whereas it may be true that t20s are more popular than ODIs (cricinfo's recent poll seems to suggest otherwise, or at least it did initially, where at one point 53% of the respondents voted for ODIs), the fact remains that the "lesser" t20 clashes will have the same attendence/revenue problems that the current ODIs do. similarily, big name ODIs still pull crowds. the champions trophy is a "lesser" tournament, and many have even questioned its validity. the world cup and asia cups still get decent attendence.

here is the last world cup highlights, and from sound, it appears that attendence is decent since most caribbean grounds are relatively small - 10-15K capacities. notice the neutral games SL-England, and minnow matches SA-holland.

Repeating myself , 20-20 WC in SA had near full stadiums for almost all the matches while this tourney of the "Champions" is hardly able to fill one stand ! Its not so much about whether an average South African prefers one format over the other rather teh average SA wont have teh time to "laze around" and watch the game for the entire day either on TV or the ground.

the champions trophy is considered by many to be a extraneous set of matches due to the presence of a 50 over world cup. further having it every 2 years takes some of the speciality out of it. hardly anyone takes it very seriously.

in contrast, the world t20 is a pretty rare event, it basically is the format at this point and since its so new, it has enjoyed considerable hype. if it had a world cup every 4 years, it would be a considerably more drab affair.

I am not sure if you grew in BD..but if you have you would see that the '90 are not the same as 2000's (I am assuming BD is similar to India )

Cricket then had the undivided attention of the average Indian ..skipping school./coolege/job was no big deal .There is a sea change now ..with the corporate culture seeping in I cant see my cousins or friends skip a day of work for cricket !
But yes , give them the option of having a beer and watch a game of cricket that lasts 3 hrs ..they are all for it ! And the ardent fans who would never imagine watching a Zim-BD match would watch it as well as it fits his schedule

i didnt grow up in BD, but you are correct, times have changed here. and maybe, since india alone is 75% of the cricket market, thats a key issue on the viability of the formats. but then again, neutral and minnow matches, would still have poor attendence. perhaps a clash between australia and south africa would be different. but there are very few such clashes.

the bottom line is that fan interest is most definitely less in neutral matches than in ones involving the home side - as proven by the match thread disparities. at least some of that is applicable to actual cricket match attendence statistics. and fan support drives 100% of the revenues - there is no revenue without direct or indirect consumption of the product by the fans. hence the same thing will happen regardless of t20 or ODI format. so why not keep the "greater" format?

in the case of ODIs, bilateral ODIs in the subcontinent are still fairly well attended in BD, but they are also fairly well attended in India, aren't they? of course that might be because India only plays home games against england, SA, and australia - but do you honestly believe that home t20s with india versus zimbabwe or bangladesh would pull in big crowds whereas ODIs wouldn't? then why go gaga for this newer and "lesser" format? add to that india won't play t20s against lesser sides at home so its a moot point anyways.

its true that spending 3 hours to watch cricket is more likely than watching 8, but is cricket really struggling that much financially? BCCI has made a ton of money even without IPL, and they don't play that many T20Is. PCB, WICB, SLC and other boards' financial struggles have other reasons that simply not having t20 access.

in my opinion, ODIs lost their flavor because of the flat nature of most pitches. teams could easily pile up 300 runs and bowlers took a beating, add to that the t20 innovation of free hits, and bowlers really took a beating. instead of having a total contest, the contest became batsmen vs batsmen, with no part for the other half of the game: bowling. the SL-ENG match was a good once because there was a true contest. it wasn't just a 600 run game which gets boring after the first several boundaries. thats not too say low scoring matches should always be the norm, but having sporting wickets will definitely bring excitement back.