That’s how Irishman George Barnard Shaw described the very English game of cricket.
A few decades later, he might well have said 1,100 million fools cheering. Probably that many people will watch or otherwise follow the The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, currently underway in the world’s most ardent cricketing region: South Asia!
In terms of television audiences and media-linked sponsorship money, the ICC Cricket World Cup is the world’s third largest sporting event: only the FIFA Football World Cup and the Summer Olympics are bigger than this event.
Not everyone is equally enthusiastic about cricket. Those in non-playing countries must wonder just what the cricket frenzy is all about. But frenzy time it is, right now, in much of South Asia. The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 started on 19 February 2011, and will continue until 2 April 2011.
To mark the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Wiz Quiz in Daily News this week was a cricket special, where we probed our readers’ knowledge of World Cup history, as well as the wider subculture of cricket.
I’m not a cricket fan myself, but living in South Asia, it is impossible to avoid catching at least bits and pieces of cricket fever. But cricket is not just a game of players and matches, but a whole cultural and social phenomenon, especially in South Asia. If the English invented cricket, the one-time British colonies have vastly globalised it.
So try your wider cricketing knowledge with this week’s quiz…and see what your score is!
Wiz Quiz 6: Cricket World Cup is here! (scroll down the page to get to the quiz)
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 