Why is Cricket so Popular in India?

Cricket Betting in India

Bequeathed by the English to their former colonies, cricket has become one of the most watched and practiced sports in India. But it wasn't popular right away. India actually entered the world of cricket in 1932 when the national team played their first test match. Note that the first match of cricket in India was recorded in 1721.

At the same time, all the religious communities in the city began to practice this sport and in order to be able to train, each built their own ground. That’s why along Marine Drive we find Parsi Gymkhana, Islam Gymkhana, Hindu Gymkhana and little Catholic Gymkhana, next to each other, facing the sea, just before Girgaon Chowpatty. At the time, inter-community tournaments were organized and these fields were heavily used, with each team training there throughout the year.

But fervor for cricket really exploded when India won the Cricket World Cup in 1983. Initially, a cricket match was played without a time limit and then for five days until the 1970s. In 1975, the first cricket world cup with matches limited to one day was held in England and in 1983 India's victory marked the start of the cricket madness in the subcontinent.

In the early 2000s, England and Wales introduced a new form of match, shorter and more active than test matches in order to approximate the length of other team sports such as football: the Twenty20 match. which lasts about 3 hours and during which each team has only twenty sets of shots to score.

With the introduction of these faster, more action-packed matches, cricket has grown tremendously, including cricket betting (check online betting site crictips.com for more info).

The growth of cricket in India

Following the wave of Twenty20 cricket, the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), the governing body of cricket in India, kicked off the Indian Premier League in 2008 by creating eight franchise teams to sell to the highest bidder.

Previously, cricket was not a marketable sport like football could be. The players' outfits were blank with sponsor logos and so were the stadiums. The creation of the Indian Premier League with fully sponsored teams allowed the BCCI to fill its coffers. It is today one of the richest cricket regulatory bodies in the world.

All of the teams were auctioned off in 2008. The Reliance group, led by Mukesh Ambani, bought the rights to the Mumbai Indians for 10 years. He would have paid 4.5 crore rupees ($607k). Mukesh Ambani and his wife are present in the stands at all of their team's games, and all television cameras are turned on them before the game begins. Bollywood's most famous actor, Sharuk Khan, has for his part, acquired the Kolkata Knight Riders team. Today he is the symbol of the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Each team has between 18 and 25 players, including a maximum of 8 foreign players. Only 11 of them including a maximum of four foreigners play in a match. Players offer themselves at auction each year according to strict rules.

In 2021, the eight teams are:

• Chennai Super Kings
• Delhi Capitals
• Punjab Kings
• Kolkata Knight Riders
• Mumbai Indians
• Rajasthan royals
• Royal Challengers Bangalore
• Sunrisers Hyderabad

The income generated by the IPL is very important and is shared between the teams and the stadium that hosts them. When the Mumbai Indians play in Bombay at Wankhede Stadium, the revenue from ticket sales is split between the Mumbai Indians and the Mumbai Cricket Association. A ticket costs at least 1,500 rupees ($20) and can go up to 20,000 rupees ($270).

The stadium capacities used during the IPL vary from over 23,000 seats for the Rajasthan Royals stadium, the Sawai Mansingh stadium to 68,000 seats for the Kolkata Knight Riders stadium, the Eden Gardens. The Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai has 33,000 seats.

Qualifying and the playoff match will be played in Chennai and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. The final will take place at the Hyderabad Stadium.

During the first two weeks of the 12th edition of the Indian Premier League, 345 million viewers watched the broadcasts of the matches! Recently, in order to boost audience figures, the league’s official match broadcasting partner, Star India has decided to broadcast matches in eight languages ​​on certain days.

The creation of the IPL has indeed had an exponential effect on the number of cricket supporters. However, players are often put a little too much pressure, when those who are also part of the national team participate in the League but at the same time train for the World Cup which takes place in England in June.

Indian Cricket Betting

With such popularity of the game of cricket in India, it is no surprise that cricket betting is also very popular. After all fans want their teams to win, so why not adding a little of betting to support their team and add to the thrill?