Developing Pakistan’s economy of sports

As commentators say in cricket, ‘against the run of play’, Pakistan summited cricket ratings to become the top-ranked team in the world after four successive victories against touring New Zealand. This is no mean feat and Babar Azam and his men deserve all the applause. Cricket in Pakistan may not be as popular as it is in neighbouring India, where cricket stars like Sachin Tendulkar are thought of as mythical characters descended on India to bring nothing but only happiness and pride to the Indian people. Pakistan’s national game is hockey, but one wouldn’t rate Pakistani cricket fans much beneath India’s if it’s a question about mad love for the game and how desperately they want to see their team win. This love for cricket has put into oblivion all other sports and denied these two countries the opportunity to diversify their sports economies into sports, some of which, like football, attract bigger crowds, are more scalable and thus, larger sources of revenue for countries where they dominate the sports culture.