Cricket voted third most boring sports in Britain

Cricket voted third most boring sports in Britain

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If you have wondered why England, the pioneers of Cricket, have failed to dominate in any aspect of the game in recent times, the answer is right here. In a recent poll conducted in England, Cricket stands as the third most boring sport in the country after the likes of Golf and American Football.

At a time when the world cricket body is desperately trying out various avenues to keep the spark of Test cricket from extinguishing, this recent poll done by YouGov Omnibus will surely be discomforting. The survey was done on 17 sports that included the likes of Cricket, Darts, Basketball, Golf, Horse Racing, Football, Swimming, Tennis and more.

The poll did bring out some surprising results and Cricket was definitely the biggest one of them. After Golf and American football, Cricket was the third most boring sport in the nation with 58% of the people claiming it. For all the county cricket culture that England boasts of and the players are willing to skip IPL for, this was really a shocker. Only 22% found it interesting while 17% found it neither boring nor interesting, which basically meant indifferent.

Cricket has often been considered as the Indian sport wrongly invented by the British. Though India’s gigantic population could be the main reason why the sport tops the chart among all other countries in terms of viewership, it is England who have the Mecca of Cricket and considers cricket to be their national sport. The very essence of the ‘Gentleman’s Game’ had been derived from the royalty who so adored the game. 

However, if you think that Football is the sport that has taken Cricket’s place in modern England now as the most entertaining sport, you are wrong. It is true that the once considered working class sport has swamped over the country now with over 40,000 association football clubs, with the FA (Football Association) being the oldest national governing body and Premier League, among the most popular and richest sports leagues in the world, 40% of the people in UK thought it was a boring sport. 

It is quite strange that football is losing its essence in England at a time when giants like Sky Sports broadcast 126 of the 168 televised games in the UK and 168 UK televised games are also broadcasted across the world.

Football is joined by Tennis as 43% of the people voted it to be thrilling, despite the fewer number of games in the country. However, Tennis has always been a favourite for the Britons. Johanna Konta's victory over Simona Halep in Wimbledon even set a new British television record for the women's tournament, with a peak of 7.4 million viewers watching the BBC's coverage.

Athletics stood to be the most entertaining sport with 47% of the people finding it to be thrilling.

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