From: kumar@ditsydh.syd.dit.CSIRO.AU (V.R.Kumar)
Subject: Cricket News from Down Under
Organization: CSIRO Division of Info Tech, Sydney, Australia
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 05:32:09 GMT

The one-day cricket competitions are filled with excitement.
But is it cricket ?

The Barnstorming return of South Africa to international competition
added further luster to the 1992 World Cup, the biggest cricket
Extravaganza yet, with an estimated TV audience of 1.5 billion in
40 countries. The 39-match five week tournament was played in 18
cities and towns up to 4,000 kilometers apart. Simply getting the
teams onto the field has cost the organizers $A4 million, but sale 
of tickets and TV rights plus the controversial sponsorship of       
tobacco company Bension and Hedges, which has put up $290,000 in
prizemoney, guaranteed the competition was a financial success before
the first ball was bowled.

For the first time, 10 of the games were played as day-nighters under
the Melbourne, Sydney and Perth flood lights making it easier for
working people to attend. The white ball, generally acclaimed as a
fine Packer innovation, has also made its World Cup debut. After
decades of failing to realize cricket's potential market prior to
Packer's revolution, administrators see the World Cup as a means of
selling the game beyond its traditional boundaries. It has managed
to establish a bridgehead in some unlikely places. Although the
nine combatant countries comprise, predictably, England and eight
of its former colonies, another 16 nations, including the U.S.,
Canada, Holland, Israel, Argentina, Papua New Guinea and Fiji,    
competed in a preliminary contest last year, with the winner
Zimbabwe, allowed to take part in the tournament proper. Cricket's
North American connection is rooted deep in history. The World's
first Cricket International was played between the U.S. and Canada
in 1844 - 33 years before the first test between Australia and
England.

Such is the international interest that the World Cup was televized
in North America and South America, Italy, and on Asia's Hong Kong
based Star TV satellite., which has a footprint stretching from
Egypt to Japan. Says World Cup Committee chairman Malcolm Gray :
"We want to use TV as a vehicle to promote cricket where it is not
played or played only on a minor scale".

The competing nations all took live coverage of varying degrees of
saturation. By far the biggest audience is on the Indian sub-continent
where many of the 1 billion-plus population are avid followers of
the game. In cities as far apart as London and Bombay, bookmakers 
were involved in brisk business. On Feb.26, South Africa came to a 
standstill as blacks and whites crowded around pay-TV sets to watch
their team demolish Australia.

During the past decade the one-day game has gone from strength to 
strength and the 1992 cup has further entrenched its popularity.
So much so that there are fears that the infinitely more complex
and subtle game that is Test Cricket will almost inevitably fade away
some time in the future.

Chappel disagrees : "The name - limited overs - says it all. It's
limited. Without test cricket, it is one-day cricket that would die."
But for now, the non-stop action and slick promotion of one-day games
attract even larger crowds - admittedly crowds more raucous and
less-knowledgeable than those attracted to Test matches. Some of the 
one-day aficionados even try to ape the vulgarities of Europe's
soccer hooligans. To many traditionalist's, such behaviour simply
isn't cricket.

 
Cheers,

Ramkumar

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| V.R.Kumar (Ramkumar Venkatachalam)                                 |
| CSIRO, Division of Information Technology                          |
| P.O.Box:1599, Macquarie Centre, North Ryde, NSW 2113, AUSTRALIA    |