The answer IS straightforward.

The answer is YES.

In sports watched it is not #1 as football and other sports piped in via televlision gain more spectators. Cable TV is dominated by US sports and for a quick fix you are not going to watch anything mroe than a few hours in length.

It wasn't always the #1 sport watched when WI were at their pomp!!!

The WI is not uniform. Cricket is bigger in Barbados than it is in Jamaica where football has always been big.

All sports are in competition with each other for the attention of a people.

Cricket is not a mass spectator TV sport and any sport (like most others) that can keep its action down to 2 hours or less will win on that forum.

And if you are going to build something for the kids to do, which is easier. a basketball court or a cricket pitch??

There is more money in WI cricket than WI basketball.

None of these guys are going to conceivably make the NBA or any other professional basketball league unless they've left on a scholarship by 19 and that rarely happens.

They are not seeing the money they can earn, they are seeing the success and fame and playing the sport to emulate it. They have not seen a successful WI cricket side so why would they flock to play that?

As globalisation and the false mantra of free trade continues to bite and things get harder in the Caribbean, a quick fix mantality hits the poor who will do anything to either hit the nig time or make them think they've hit the big time.

The demographics of the region are that nearly all these boys are black.

So who do you think they are going tio try and copy.

A league of majority black millionaires who are feted as brilliant even if they are playing for a losing side (The NBA)

Or a team that loses most of its games? (WI cricket team)

But regardless of how popular a sport is, once you';ve chosen to take it upon yourself to play that sport as your own, you should be executing the basics properly.

I don't think a single Ennglishman or Aussie would accept that people are watching football or rugby as an excuse for averaging just 20.