cricket popular or unpopular in west indies?

[sanketh84]

hey i was at the pakistan vs wi world cup opening match as well. wud u believe it that 16 of us bought the ticket in the official counter about 15 minutes after the match started. some of the locals i spoke to said the tickets were way too expensive to buy. i mean it was no sellout crowd and the people started dissappearing as the match wore on, i mean the atmosphere was good but by no means even close to what it is for a cricket match in india!!!. meanwhile in our beach resort negril which is about 3 hrs away from kingston, people didn't seem to care the world cup was going on. u'd expect people to be glued to the TV in india during the world cup season. i spoke to a few more people who said cricket was hardly played in jamaica, soccer was the main sport and some people even believed that cricket was for weak sissies !!!! even the news coverage for the world cup match was just about a minute. its sad that cricket needs to be promoted all over again in the west indies. maybe as speedboy said there needs to be a fillip like beating a world class team or winning a world event which again creates interest. but then cricket has to be worth the livelihood as well so ICC needs to have a policy of weaker boards being helped by richer ones.

[batoutofhell]

mahim i am not from windies but i think what Ninjaman says is the answer for ur queries
i guess ninjaman is from windies and still living there(purely based on ninjaman's past postings and threads)
am i right ninjaman?

[jrwb]

From a broad standpoint, cricket is the most popular sport in the West Indies - obviously its popularity varies from island to island, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Football gives strong competition to cricket in places like Jamaica and Trinidad. In the smaller islands, like those in the Leeward and Windward group, it reigns supreme.

Quite often in the West Indies, it is the most common topic of conversation (or argument) in drinking-spots, and may or may not take second place to local politics. Youngsters, being heavily influenced by the rubbish they see on cable television, may be less inclined to play cricket as often as their fathers did, but the American sports regularly seen on television have had no direct impact on the sport young people play. I am not aware of eny evidence that american football or baseball have increased in popularity to any degree in the West Indies. Basketball has long enjoyed popularity in the Caribbean, and well before the cable tv era here. Boys looking to play some game to while away their idle hours inevitably play either cricket or football, depending usually on the time of the year.

So contrary to what some people say, cricket is alive and well here in the Caribbean...in spite of our losing side...