Cricket spectators are as tired as Indian cricketers

At its peak, Eden Gardens could hold 1,30,000 spectators. The experience of playing there, said Sunil Gavaskar recently , was “Scary, even for the home side.” He should know. Gavaskar was booed — and pelted with orange peel — when he dropped Kapil Dev from the side against England in 1984.

The banners that day read, ‘No Kapil, No Test’ . Today, the Gardens seats far fewer people: a recent makeover has reduced capacity to 65,000. For some time, the stadium went to seed and Kolkata was dropped from the cricket itinerary while repairs got going at a snail’s pace. All of this seems to have corroded the Bengali’s love for cricket.

Pre-match ticket sales for Tuesday’s fifth and final India-England one-day international were struggling to reach 6,000. Though a few more souls turned up to cheer the home side, the tone was muted and the stadium, far from full. Is it just Kolkata, or is the Indian cricket viewer finally succumbing to fatigue? The latter is more likely. Mumbai’s Wankhede, where India beat England a few days earlier, was also less-thanhalf full.

The spectator is as tired of the endless, wall-to-wall cricket streaming at him, as the playing team. India’s victory in the one-day series might have seemed like sweet revenge to some after the disastrous tour of England, but to many others, it was just some more cricket between the same two sides. India’s team now plays more cricket, more frequently, than it has ever done before.

The IPL tournament and other T20 engagements take place in the cruel heat of summer, winters are devoted to matches at home, otherwise there are tournaments overseas. Player fatigue and injuries are high, performances are below par, the viewer is bored. Will boredom drive India’s cricket fans to supporting other sports, finally?