Just how popular is cricket in India?

It’s easy to get swept along by the razzmatazz of the IPL, and I apologise if I’ve already mentioned that cricket will never be the same again, or some variation on the cliché of the moment. But journalists are supposed to challenge assumptions, so – deep breath – here goes: is cricket really as popular with India’s youth as the English like to imagine?

Now before you start shaking your heads at the appalling naivety of the question, consider this quote in today’s Times of India from a Mr Sandeep Kumar Bajpai, described as an engineering student: “The IPL has the potential to become as popular as the English Premier League.” As popular? What about the IPL becoming as popular as, ooh, the Indian Test team, or the Indian 50-overs team? No, Sandeep chose a sport which anecdotal evidence suggests is in danger of diluting the average Indian youngster’s apparently innate love of cricket.

Last year, in the course of researching an article on the phenomenon of the long-distance sports fan for a British magazine, I spoke to N Manoj, an 18-year-old economics student from Bangalore and a mad-keen Chelsea supporter. He assured me that he and his friends made a habit of gathering around the TV a few times a week to watch live coverage of the English Premier League on ESPN and Star-Sports. His nickname, naturally, was Frank, after the Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard.

I asked him whether football could ever replace cricket in the affections of the Indian people. He replied: “I think and hope so. If the Indian team does well, there is nothing to stop football equalling and possibly overthrowing cricket as the most popular game.” OK, so that’s a big if – India are currently 154th in the FIFA world rankings – but the point is a more general one: are young Indians, exposed to western influences in a way their parents never were, getting their kicks elsewhere? Whisper it, but do they find Test cricket boring?

When Twenty20 was introduced in England in 2003, the aim was to bring a new type of fan – younger and preferably female – through the gate. The IPL, goes the argument, is all about the cash. To a large extent this is true, but listen to Rahul Dravid, captain of the Bangalore Royal Challengers, replying last night to a journalist who asked him whether Twenty20 could damage Test cricket: “I don’t think so. I think it’s going to raise the profile of the game like nothing else. It’s going to bring new people to the venues and hopefully if we bring them to the ground, they will support the other forms of the game as well.”

It’s the kind of talk followers of the English game will be familiar with. The IPL has been called many things, but a chance to reconnect India’s youth with a game that most of us believe runs through their blood has not been one of them.