Indoor cricket -- in the outside world

Indoor cricket hasn't, as yet, attracted much notice in the media. But the sport is catching on fast, for all that, and is already immensely popular in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

It is also played in the United Arab Emirates, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, and moves are underway for the sport's establishment in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. As for India, the establishment of indoor cricket has taken a dramatic and positive turn with the recent official launch of the programme to build 30 centres throughout India, referred to earlier.

And indoor cricket already has a World Cup. Every two years, the World Indoor Cricket Federation facilitates the holding of the Indoor Cricket World Cup. Last year it was in South Africa, next year it is slated to be hosted by New Zealand.

Men's and women's teams from the main playing nations compete in a round-robin format, culminating in a final-four finals series. Australia are the most successful team, with both its men's and women's teams winning every World Cup so far. But the rest of the world is catching up -- last year, the Australian women lost their first ever World Cup game, going down to South Africa in the qualifying round, and the Australian men won their way into the Final by just one run, over South Africa.

Despite the fact there was no organised indoor cricket competitions in India, she fielded a team in last year's World Cup. Also, an Indian Under-23 development squad combined with a South African Under-23 squad and competed in place of Pakistan, who had to withdraw at the last moment. It was the first time the Indian players had ever competed against the top players from the rest of the world, and the experience would have been a huge lesson for them.

In conclusion, I'd like to quote myself, in an as yet unpublished article I recently wrote on what Indian indoor cricket could realistically expect of the future: "Not next year's World Cup of course, and probably not the one after that . . . but if Indian Indoor Cricket does not set the one after that as the World Cup when no side can simply field a team against them and assume they're going to have an easy victory, then Indian Indoor Cricket needs a kick where it will do most good. Knowing some of the people involved at this early stage of the sport's development in India, I don't think that kick in the pants is going to be necessary".

And the more people who get out and look at the game, the more who will give it a try. And the more who give it a try, the quicker the game will develop. And the quicker India develops a national indoor cricket team of note, the quicker she will become a serious competitor on the international indoor cricket scene.

I don't know about you, but I can hardly wait.

Sheldon Levis is webmaster of Indoor Cricket World

External link:

The Indian indoor cricket website