[kuz]

Scandal in cricket?  That is as unbelievable as suggesting there is scandal in FIFA.  If you start typing "India cricket scandal", google helpfully tries to autcomplete with a year to narrow it down.  There's "India cricket scandal 2013", "India cricket scandal 2014", and "India cricket scandal 2010", and for good measure ""India cricket scandal match fixing".

The rise and fall of Windies cricket has been interesting.  By any measure, the West Indies should have been a cricket asterisk (akin to having a successful NFL team in North Dakota).  However, from 1980 to 1995, the West Indies cricket side did not lose a single test series.  And then, it all collapsed.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheor...re-babylon

Statistics highlight how dramatic the West Indies’ decline has been. Between March 1976 and March 1995, the West Indies won 71 and lost only 20 Test matches against the other eight Test-playing nations (excluding Zimbabwe, which did not gain Test status until 1992). Since June 2000 the side has won 14 and lost 78 Tests against the same opponents. The fall has been almost as marked in ODI cricket, where the West Indies have won 72 games and lost 161 against the traditional top eight sides since June 2000. Only Twenty20 cricket has provided any solace: the West Indies won the World T20 in 2012 and have consistently played vibrant cricket in the format.

BC

I think the comparisons of West Indies cricket to a successful North Dakota NFL team are extremely unfair to the West Indies. They were great in the 70s and 80s due to an incredible battery of fast bowlers, which is unsurprising due to physical reasons; fast bowlers need to be tall and strong (which is one of the reasons why India, despite its brobdingnagian population, tends to have mediocre fast bowlers - it's hard to battle genetics).

Their decline is due to a couple of factors. The rise of popularity of sports like soccer in the region means that fewer kids are playing cricket than previously. The sport has also benefited in recent years from more detailed and advanced coaching, something that has been severely lacking in the West Indies. Finally, there's been brobdingnagian financial mismanagement and scandals involving the West Indies cricket board that have led to their best players refusing to play for the national team and instead participating in domestic Twenty-20 games in India and Australia for much higher pay. In the most recent test series between the West Indies and Australia, for example, they had several players who were instead playing in the Australian domestic league at the time because the pay was better. Unsurprisingly, the West Indies were completely outclassed in all three tests (with rain the only reason they didn't lose 3-0).


But yes, in recent years there have been a bunch of scandals in cricket. Pakistan, India, South Africa, and the West Indies are all major cricket playing countries that also have high levels of corruption, so it's not surprising that these seep into the cricketing world. In the last decade, the rise of Twenty-20 cricket has led to brobdingnagian amounts of revenue being available, especially in the Indian Premier League, which is about as corruptly run as you can get (aside from FIFA, of course).

[kuz]

Scandal in cricket?  That is as unbelievable as suggesting there is scandal in FIFA.  If you start typing "India cricket scandal", google helpfully tries to autcomplete with a year to narrow it down.  There's "India cricket scandal 2013", "India cricket scandal 2014", and "India cricket scandal 2010", and for good measure ""India cricket scandal match fixing".

The rise and fall of Windies cricket has been interesting.  By any measure, the West Indies should have been a cricket asterisk (akin to having a successful NFL team in North Dakota).  However, from 1980 to 1995, the West Indies cricket side did not lose a single test series.  And then, it all collapsed.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheor...re-babylon

Statistics highlight how dramatic the West Indies’ decline has been. Between March 1976 and March 1995, the West Indies won 71 and lost only 20 Test matches against the other eight Test-playing nations (excluding Zimbabwe, which did not gain Test status until 1992). Since June 2000 the side has won 14 and lost 78 Tests against the same opponents. The fall has been almost as marked in ODI cricket, where the West Indies have won 72 games and lost 161 against the traditional top eight sides since June 2000. Only Twenty20 cricket has provided any solace: the West Indies won the World T20 in 2012 and have consistently played vibrant cricket in the format.

BC

I think the comparisons of West Indies cricket to a successful North Dakota NFL team are extremely unfair to the West Indies. They were great in the 70s and 80s due to an incredible battery of fast bowlers, which is unsurprising due to physical reasons; fast bowlers need to be tall and strong (which is one of the reasons why India, despite its brobdingnagian population, tends to have mediocre fast bowlers - it's hard to battle genetics).

Their decline is due to a couple of factors. The rise of popularity of sports like soccer in the region means that fewer kids are playing cricket than previously. The sport has also benefited in recent years from more detailed and advanced coaching, something that has been severely lacking in the West Indies. Finally, there's been brobdingnagian financial mismanagement and scandals involving the West Indies cricket board that have led to their best players refusing to play for the national team and instead participating in domestic Twenty-20 games in India and Australia for much higher pay. In the most recent test series between the West Indies and Australia, for example, they had several players who were instead playing in the Australian domestic league at the time because the pay was better. Unsurprisingly, the West Indies were completely outclassed in all three tests (with rain the only reason they didn't lose 3-0).


But yes, in recent years there have been a bunch of scandals in cricket. Pakistan, India, South Africa, and the West Indies are all major cricket playing countries that also have high levels of corruption, so it's not surprising that these seep into the cricketing world. In the last decade, the rise of Twenty-20 cricket has led to brobdingnagian amounts of revenue being available, especially in the Indian Premier League, which is about as corruptly run as you can get (aside from FIFA, of course).