NEW DELHI, 27 February 2007 — Gone are the days when a batsman would plod for 60 overs to make a measly 36 in a one-day match as India’s Sunil Gavaskar did in the inaugural World Cup in 1975.
Gone also is a cricket World Cup that would comprise only 15 matches over five playing days with no live global television coverage and little money like that first one in England.
Five days? The upcoming 16-team World Cup in the Caribbean will last 48 days with 51 matches broadcast live to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
The World Cup just keeps getting bigger with more teams, more matches, more money and higher revenue.
Clive Lloyd’s West Indians pocketed 4,000 British pounds for winning the 1975 World Cup and 10,000 pounds for retaining the title in 1979. The 2007 champions after the final in Barbados on April 28 will take home a cool $2.2 million and the runners- up will be compensated with a million dollars.
First-timers Bermuda and Ireland are assured of earning $15,000 each just for stepping on the pitch. Teams losing each first round match will be rewarded with $5,000.
The total prize money for the 2007 World Cup is $5 million, having grown five-fold since the 1999 edition in England.
Many have questioned the wisdom of bringing in more teams into the World Cup lest it lowers playing standards. Of the 16 going to the West Indies, six are non-Test playing nations. But television bosses, who usually have the final say in such matters, can’t wait for the day when the field is increased to 32 teams like in the football World Cup.
“Cricket needs to evolve,” said Nimbus chairman Harish Thawani, who paid a whopping $612 million to win the marketing rights for Indian cricket for the next four years.
“Cricket is essentially a 10-country sport with only 4-5 countries providing revenues worth the mention. But cricket must reduce its excessive dependency on India.
“If the Indian economy slows down, the revenues of the sport will decline. New markets have to be found.” Five of the six global sponsors of the International Cricket Council (ICC) are India-specific because the country’s vast cricket-loving population is a sponsors’ dream.
The idea of the World Cup was first mooted in England by Ben Brocklehurst, owner of the Cricketer magazine and a former Somerset captain, who suggested a multination tournament be played in 1972. Brocklehurst wanted the six Test-playing nations then — England, Australia, India, Pakistan, West Indies and New Zealand — to join South Africa and a Rest of World team in a 21-match event in September 1972. The International Cricket Conference, as the ICC was known then, rejected the idea but it was not long before England were asked to host the first World Cup in 1975.
Prudential Assurance sponsored the first three events before the World Cup shifted outside England when political and sporting rivals India and Pakistan hosted the 1987 edition.
The move came with dramatic changes. Matches were reduced from 60 overs to 50- overs-a-side and the 27 World Cup games were spread over 32 days, almost twice as long as in 1983. Colored clothing and white balls were introduced at the 1992 tournament in Australia and New Zealand where South Africa made a comeback to the world scene from their apartheid-induced ban. South Africa and the other eight Test nations played each other once in the league phase with the top four advancing to the semifinals.
