i wrote this another web-site in regards to the other
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
well i hate to say but i think cricket is a sport in crisis really.
In Australia, were obvlivious to it all because our team does so well and all the players are earning loads of money. We have fringe FC players (not earning to badly themselves in Australia) who can go over and play league cricket in England and earn quite a handsome sum. We have reasonable FC players (earning good money) who can play county cricket in England and earn a huge sum.
But overseas the only other country which isn't in a fair bit of trouble is England.
Zimbabwe is obvious, while Bangladesh just aren't international standard. the Windies have obviousbly been in decline for quite a while and this is only going to speed up the process.
South Africa's team has been in decline for a few years since the debacle at their own world cup which ended in the sacking of Sean Pollock. what should've been one of the best month's for South African cricket has ended up being their worst. Since then SP was dropped as captain, the one-day team can harldy win and the test team isn't doing much better. The accusations of racism that are so common in every day society for them have no crept into their cricketing fraternity and there are clear divisions within South African cricket.
New Zealand cricket is just a shambles. They couldn't pay a man to come watch a One-dayer over there let alone a test match. I don't know how their one-day team is rated number two in the world cause it clearly isn't. There full of ordinary all rounders who combine to make a pretty average line-up capable of producing the goods sometimes. But their national body isn't making a cent, no one is going to their games and they're more intereted in rugby - speaking of which, how stupid to have a showcase series againts Australia clash with the start of the Super 12 competition.
And then we have the sub continent teams where who on earth would know what's going on. Players are touted as the next Bradman/Lillee then the next day they're not even good enough for first class cricket, gambling and player's being accused of match fixing, extremely inconsistent performances on the park, coaches seem to change every few weeks, supporters burn images of the players when they lose a game. It's frustrating because this should be the strongest region in the world for cricket (due to population and popularity of cricket) but it's so inconsistent and are without a doubt the most disorganised region in world cricket.
The only country aside from Australian going forward is England - and only a few years ago they looked like they were destined to fall into the cricketing black hole with pathetic crowds and pathetic on field performances.
And then we come to the ICC. The most spineless, inept, disorganised, shortsighted, brainless, useless, pathetic organisation to run international sport ANYWHERE in the world. I can't even remember the last time i thought the ICC had come up with a good inniative. Words just can't express how much i hate the ICC. People complain about the AFL, but i tell you if the ICC was running the AFL competition we'd probably still be a semi-amatuer league with about 10,000 people turning up at most.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
for the non Australians in here, the AFL is the most popular footballing code in Australia but isn't played overseas.
