Popularity Of Cricket In Sub-Continent

The game of cricket has a known history spanning from the 16th century to the present day, with international matches played since 1844 and the Test cricket matches since 1877. During this time, the game developed from its origins in England into a game, which is now played all over the world and is more popular in the Sub-Continent Nations- India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
In these four Nations, cricket has emerged as the most popular sport. The game has its origin in these Nations from18th centuries and since then it has rooted itself on various grounds of World. As per Bangladesh is concerned, the origin of cricket over here is found in 19th century. Since then the four Sub-Continent Nation has faced tremendous victory and defeat.
With the commencing of Cricket World Cup in 1975, the popularity of cricket reached on its peak. The game retained more zeal and passion. However, for Sub-Continent Nation World Cup it becomes like an obsession and even today the game is still holding the same passion and fervor.
When we move towards their previous history, we find that the top three Sub-Continent Nation i.e. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had a very brilliant past, holding World Cup once. India lifted the Cup in the year 1983, under the captaincy of Kapil Dev, Pakistan lifted the Cup in 1992, captained by Imran Khan. In 1996, Sri Lanka won the World Cup match, captained by Arjuna Ranatunga. As per Bangladesh is concerned, the popularity of cricket is found the same but its their bad luck which never pulled them to win the Cup.
“2007” is again a year for the ninth edition of the World Cup Cricket Tournament, and the four Nations are holding its breath. The passion is still the same but only the player and the captaincy has changed. In this World Cup India is being captained by Rahul Dravid, Sri Lanka is being captained by Mahela Jayawardene, Pakistan is being captained by Inzamam-ul-Haq and Bangladesh is being captained by Habibul Bashar.
The hopes for these four Nations are dilemmatic, as their previous performance, was not that much appealing. When we cast our view towards India and Srilanka, we found that Sri Lanka was defeated by India in the recently concluded home series. As per Pakistan is concerned, they are moving from a very bad phase, their players are injured and the team is surrounded by many controversies. And, there is no word to explain about Bangladesh. The prospect of World Cup is under dilemmatic situation but the passion and popularity is still the same among these four Sub-Continent Nations.
Hence, we will have to wait and watch the World Cup