Bangladesh: A virgin market for cricket

Dhaka, February 19: Dhaka resembles any Indian metro of the 90s ' squalid roads and dusty lanes with unregulated traffic. Not that there are no traffic jams in Mumbai or Kolkata today, but the roads here are jammed even by the pedestrians. People here come in waves and movement on the streets is as high as the strike rate of Aakash Chopra.

But the similarities between retro India and the current Bangladesh don't end on the streets alone. Just like in India of the 90s, there is a perceptible and tangible passion for cricket here. Post IPL, there is a talk of cricket fatigue in India ' not just for the players but for the viewer as well ' and here the talk is of hunger. The serpentine queues outside the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium, five hours before the start of the India-Bangladesh match, testify the point. The cricket 'madness' among the Bangladeshis has reached its crescendo for the World Cup, and the result of Saturday's game is unlikely to diminish the passion in any way. But the larger point is somewhere else.

As the country's top economist says, Bangladesh is a virgin cricket market, waiting to welcome the multinationals. The impact could soon be the buck, rather taka. 'It is not rocket science. Where there are eyeballs, there are sponsors. It is just a matter of time, before the cola companies and electronic giants invested in the Bagladesh cricket,' says Prof Muzibur Rehman, the country's well-known economist. Bangladesh is a burgeoning economy with a growth rate of 5.7 ' it is the 48th largest in the world ' but there is a huge human capital here. It is the eighth most populated country in the world.

'We need one major win to attract sponsors,' says Habibul Bashar, a former Bangladesh skipper. Bangladesh recently beat New Zealand 4-0 but it was not as big as India's 1983 win. Rehman hopes the current World Cup could provide a decisive break. 'It has already helped our tourism but we're hoping for more,' he says. 'Bangladesh has been slow off the blocks among the other nations in the subcontinent. We're slower than Sri Lanka and Pakistan and not to say of India. But the World Cup could be the catalyst for us. There is a potential market for the multinationals here,' he remarks.

One of the cola giants is associated with International Cricket Council and a sponsor of the quadrennial event. 'The key to sponsoring is saleability. The eyeballs are not the only deciding factors. We need to look at the market. Are there buyers for our products? The country's economy too has to grow for us to be involved with them,' says a top-honcho of an Indian cola giant.

One can't say when that will happen but if Bangladesh cricket were to grow, there could bea potential impact on Indian cricket. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) would be better off keeping a watch on its friendly neighbour. Some ofits sponsors could be looking east-ward.