Cricket in India - Debate

This is my friend recently said -


" I really think, BCCI, IPL should be scrapped and the whole bloody mess of cricket mafia be cleaned up by someone (home, CBI ?). What nonsense is our Agri minister doing in BCCI ? I am not a fan of cricket, I think it has done more harm than good to India - and totally wasted the youth force. Not a single sports can come out of India because of this. It is like a chakunda tree which doesn't allow a single blade of grass grow near it. In this point I am totally with Swami Ramdev. Recently I provided a volley ball and net to my village boys to play. The ball got punctured and now the field we prepared to play the volley is a cricket field. "

And below was my reaction....

humm....thats a outburst from no where...I guess you are frustrated because the volleyball court in your village got converted to Cricket field, which you didn't want :-) !!
I agree with the fact that Cricket in India is highly commercialized....but why it happened? Why all these things didn't happen for any other sports? First try to figure that out instead of just blaming the game.
I think till 1995 or even later, BCCI was a loss making organization depending on the govt. to function.
I am a great admirer of the sport and happy that India is dominating world of cricket with some of the best players in the world being from India.

Yes, at the same time I am also NOT a IPL fan. I think it is killing the sanctity of the game. What we are producing as cricketers (so called the promotion and identifying young talent) doesn't have the substance in them to become great.

If you point fingers at Cricket for the obscene amount of money involved in it, then you have to point fingers at lot of other things like Media and Entertainment, politics etc. Where ever there is money, there will be corruption. Money doesn't have any religion. It has even happened in individual sports like Lawn Tennis.

I agree that there is a problem...and as you said it needs cleaning up. But the solution is not killing cricket...

BTW, I feel it is completely wrong to use the "Chakunda tree" analogy here.. Other sports are not orphans and need not grow under the "Chatrachhaya" of cricket.

There is always a place for a banyan tree or a palm tree along side the Chakunda tree...its a matter of nurturing and growing them....