One thing I’ve never quite understood about the British sports lover is their fascination with no-frills sports. What I mean by that is that when a sporting event is held in the UK there never seems to be much of a fuss about it. If you look at American Baseball or Football games, they have fireworks and carnivals, shows etc etc. The Americans did try and create a little of that excitement over here by designing the NFL Europe league which was a short-lived American Football league.
There was the Scottish Claymores and the London Monarchs in the league. The games used to start with an hour long party outside the stadiums with music, games, bouncy castles etc. During the games, whenever a touchdown was scored, fireworks went off and replays were shown on a gigantic screen. It was extremely exciting at the time (though when the league folded, it was estimated the country had lost over £30million). It seems obvious that the British sports lover doesn’t care about glitz or glamour, they just want a simple no-nonsense event where they can watch their teams play to win.
This is probably the way it should be of course. Cricket is no different. I find nothing glamorous about the game myself. The uniforms are white and dull, the pitch is dull, and the fans don’t seem that involved in the game.
With that said, Cricket probably takes more money for the country than any other sport (with the exception of football) so who am I to judge the fact that the game doesn’t look like it commands a lot of money!