Cricket was, for a long time, primarily a leisure sport and a thoroughly gentleman’s game which was played in the spacious lawns in England. However, with the colonial rulers it has reached to all parts of the globe and turned out to be more and more commercial over the years. Perhaps no other game had so much of literature and science built into it.

Cricket has occupied the mind space of so many Asians that, people virtually breathe cricket. It is no joke that when two young men are asked about their favorite time pass on any holiday, they would prefer watching cricket on television rather than watching a Bollywood movie. In India, cricket stars are Divas and the public carefully scrutinizes all their actions.

For some important matches, people apply leave from their office duty, business establishments shut their doors early and the usually crowded streets become empty as most of the people sit at home glued to their T.V sets. Such popularity of the game has more to do with the desire of the people to find an easy escape from the daily monotony and troubles. So from the early seventies it has gathered momentum and with the Historic world cup win in 1983, cricket has finally replaced Hockey as the favorite sport of the Indians. Similarly, with the wins by Pakistan in 1992 and Sri Lanka in 1996, these Asian nations were gripped with cricket fever.

With time, cricket shed the leaning towards England-Australia axis and became more of a global sport. The consequence was that it led to proliferation of matches, introduction of new versions like twenty-twenty and modification of existing rules and inventing of new ones (which were a mixture of silly and very wise). Thus, those cricket boards in countries with large populations became rich and strangulated other cricketing boards into accepting their new ways of thinking. In the melee cricket lost its quality, poise and charm.
Decline of Caribbean cricket: -Since 1950s West Indies developed itself into a force to reckon with and by late seventies it became virtually an unstoppable one. It had a battery of fast, furious and intimidating bowlers and classy, bludgeoning and hard-hitting batsmen. The fielders were also agile and fleet footed. There was good team spirit and the captain was always considered numero uno and there was a perfect succession planning. All these resulted into the building of a powerful team that could not be grudged in public by the opposition players for the fear of intimidating bowling against them!

The Caribbean batsmen were perfect players against spin and pace alike. For the spinners they used their feet well by dancing down the track and lifting them continuously into the stands for sixes so that the opposition skippers were forced to fill their team with seam bowlers but they proved to be mincemeat as the Caribbean batsmen were adept at horizontal bat shots. However as the proverb says” all things are born only to perish after sometime”, Caribbean cricket reached its peak in 1988 and the decline started from then onwards with the retirement of players like Richards, Haynes, Greenidge, Marshall, Holding, Roberts.

Lack of supply of good players from the stables of the domestic cricket due to diversion of interest of younger generation from cricket to other sports like football, volley ball and a general shift in social conditions culminated in the decline of cricket and its decimation. The present team is a pale shadow of its former self as there is no fast bowler who can bowl more than 135kmph(in those days at 135kmph, he was considered to be the slowest of the fast bowlers and the opposing batsmen could have heaved a sigh of relief on seeing him with the ball in his hand) and no batsmen who can score more than one century in a series.

In its hay days the closest that any team could reach the Caribbean team was the Aussies under Greg Chappell and even that team used to manage consolation victories like a 1- 4 win. There was no rotation policy and match after match the fast bowlers pounded the batsmen with fast short pitched deliveries. Now- a- days, the scene has reversed and the teams all over the world hand over a consolation win to the Windies .It will take a miracle to replicate the team of 1980s.

Change in social conditions: - Zimbabwe became a test-playing nation in early 1990s.Before that it brought down on to the carpet teams like Australia, England and India in one-day matches. There were excellent players like Traicos, Kevin Curren, and David Houghton in the initial days and Heath streak, Flower brothers-Andy and Grant, Murray Goodwin, Neil Johnson, Henry Olonga etc in the modern days. However due to a sudden change in social and political conditions, some good cricketers have either retired prematurely or emigrated from Zimbabwe leaving the team in tatters. From being the dark horses they have now become the underdogs and the most promising test playing nation of the early 1990s with some exciting hitters and great fielders is slowly becoming a nondescript one.

Possibility of retirement of great players in Indian sub-continent in the near future: - The fabulous five of the Indian cricket, Sachin, Rahul, Sourav, Laxman and Kumble are in the fag end of their career. Though some possible replacements are being made ready it remains to be seen how they will adjust to the demands of stardom and excessive cricket. Stuck with nostalgia of these fabulous five, people may not show that much of interest until another crop of youngsters take center-stage and lack of patronage may be reason for the possibility of decline. This might already be happening in Pakistan with the retirement of Inzamam-ul-haq, Shahid Afridi, Saqlain Mushtaq, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and in Sri Lanka with the retirement of players like Jayasuria, Attapattu and the gradual decline of skill of Vaas and the inability of the new comers to grab the chances. If people do not throng to grounds in the same numbers as in the past, then it will be difficult to sustain the show.

Too much of cricket: - In the modern days teams in general play 12 tests, 30-40 one days and 30-45 twenty-twenty cricket in a year. All these lead to wear and tear to cricketers and overdose of entertainment to the spectators. The example of Dhoni taking rest from the Sri Lanka series was ample proof to this phenomenon. No rotation policy can restore the lost pride and spectators cannot fathom losses with ‘B’ Grade teams.

So the administrative heads should pool up their talents and see that cricket retains its charm forever without loosing out to football and other sports. They should also launch talent schools in Windies and Zimbabwe to help them retain the old glory and see that good players do not retire prematurely due to petty disputes. Better regulation of the cricket matches by the authorities to retain the spectator interest and unity among cricketing bodies and cricketers is the need of the hour.