World cup is a bigger draw in cricket than Asiad or Olympics: Vengsarkar

Former India captain, Dilip Vengsarkar, yesterday stood by the Board of Control for Cricket in India for their decision of not fielding a team in the Asian Games in China later this year.

Dilip Vengsarkar

Vengsarkar, who was a member of the World Cup winning side in 1983, felt that there was no need for cricket to be included in the Asian Games or in the Olympics as the game has enough properties of it's own at the respective levels. "We have our Asia Cup and World Cup, so what is the need for competing in the Asian Games and the Olympics," he said.

'Colonel' as he is fondly known, further added, "The Olympics and Asian Games are mostly for individual performances. Cricket is a team sport and it doesn't need the Olympics."

He substantiated his opinion with the example of football, which is an Olympic sport, but the biggest spectacle of football is the FIFA World Cup that will be held in South Africa this time. Vengsarkar said that in the same way the biggest spectacle for cricket was the cricket World Cup.

BCCI's decision not to send teams to the Asian Games did not go down well with the Olympic Council of Asia which called it a setback to cricket's inclusion in truly international sports events.

Too much T20
Vengsarkar further observed that there was too much Twenty20 cricket being played and felt that there was no need for more. He said: "There has been a lot of Twenty20 cricket with the Indian Premier League and the T20World Cup in West Indies. How many T20 matches will they play?"

Vengsarkar also pointed that the level of competition in the Olympics and Asian Games won't be that great. He said, "Olympics includes almost all the countries of the world and cricket is not played by all the countries."

Sports minister MS Gill said he personally is not in favour of cricket's inclusion in such multi-sport events.

"As an individual, I am not sure cricket should be in the Asian Games," said Gill.