Langeveldt said:
Well what defines global? When you can pitch up in Nepal with a bat and have a game with kids that have never spoken English, then you get an idea as to where things are going.. Guess it depends how seriously you want people to play, you could argue that only a handful of latin American and European countries have a hope at winning the football world cup
It's not global because... trust me on this... it is NOT a major sport outside of the existing 10 test playing countries. While there might be existing Cricket associations in countries like the Netherlands, you can take it from me the average public member couldn't give a rats **** about Cricket, and it's not likely to change any time in the future. I'd be surprised if their teams performances in the world cup are even broadcast on a major telelvision network.
And as for the FIFA world cup, the game IS global. Every participating member has a major soccer establishment and infrastructure and has qualified ahead of other countries in a similar position. While the competition has only been won bya few countries, all of whom are either from South America of Europe, it's worth noting that there have only been 18 world cups and that there are alot of countries in Europe.
In previous world cups teams from Central/North America, Africa and the orient have made an impact,and are ever improving. The only 'bunny' team I saw in 2002 was Saudi Arabia.
The last world cup saw the unfancied Germans (beaten pre-tournament 5-1 by England) scrape their way past superior opponents to finalise against a Briazilian tema that almost didn't qualify!They beat two unfancied teams Turkey and South Korea to get to the final, the former of whom palyed some excellent football throughout the tournament, and the latter is from the orient.
The 1998 world cup saw unfancied hosts France beat an overrated and underp par Word champs Brazil, after beating the unfancied Croatians in the semis.
The 1994 world cup saw an unfancied (believe it or not) Brazilian team triumph over favourites Italy, whod beaten unfancied Bulgaria in the semis.
The 1990 world cup saw ageing and lacklustre Germany beat falkey defending cahmps Argentina in the final.
The 1986 world cup was the last time a team amongst the pre-tourney favourites won the cup, and it was the first time in a long time.
The FIFA world cup and the ICC world cup are incomparable. The FIFA world is a high-qulaity competition that is truely global, even and open to upsets. The same can't be said for the ICC world cup.
You're not comparing apples with apples.
josh said:
It can be found in 120 countries.
Okay Josh, how about you write to the ACB and ask them to include the Netherands in the next VB seres?
Or better still, go to the Netherlands and see if you can pick up any improvements to your game form their expertise and heritage?